The following article in today’s NYTimes discusses the debate about the violence that is perpetrated in the name of Holy War in the Islamic World. What is more interesting to me is that the debate is overflowing into more important and substantial issues of reinterpretation of faith. How will that happen? Is there a mechanism in place for it to happen? Who will guide it? I can clearly foresee an important role for MHI in this process - perhaps a precursor to his Zahurat.
The other aspect that this article portrays is that there is diversity of opinion in the Muslim world. Hence promoting pluralism in Islamic world is not difficult as it appears. Our Jamat through its institutional activities can provide the catalyst or stimulus for it.
NYTimes.com Article: Muslim Scholars Increasingly Debate Unholy
Muslim Scholars Increasingly Debate Unholy War
December 10, 2004
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
CAIRO, Dec. 9 - Muhammad Shahrour, a layman who writes extensively about Islam, sits in his engineering office in
Damascus, Syria, arguing that Muslims will untangle their faith from the increasingly gory violence committed in its
name only by reappraising their sacred texts.
First, Mr. Shahrour brazenly tackles the Koran. The entire ninth chapter, The Sura of Repentance, he says, describes a failed attempt by the Prophet Muhammad to form a state on the Arabian Peninsula. He believes that as the source of most of the verses used to validate extremist attacks, with lines like "slay the pagans where you find them," the
chapter should be isolated to its original context.
"The state which he built died, but his message is still alive," says Mr. Shahrour, a soft-spoken, 65-year-old
Syrian civil engineer with thinning gray hair. "So we have to differentiate between the religion and state politics.
When you take the political Islam, you see only killing, assassination, poisoning, intrigue, conspiracy and civil
war, but Islam as a message is very human, sensible and just."
Mr. Shahrour and a dozen or so like-minded intellectuals from across the Arab and Islamic worlds provoked bedlam
when they presented their call for a reinterpretation of holy texts after a Cairo seminar entitled "Islam and
Reform" earlier this fall.
"Liars! Liars!" someone screamed at a news conference infiltrated by Islamic scholars and others from the
hard-core faithful who shouted and lunged at the panelists to a degree that no journalist could ask a question. "You
are all Zionists! You are all infidels!"
The long-simmering internal debate over political violence in Islamic cultures is swelling, with seminars like that
one and a raft of newspaper columns breaking previous taboos by suggesting that the problem lies in the way Islam
is being interpreted. On Saturday in Morocco, a major conference, attended by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell,
will focus on increasing democracy and liberal principles in the Muslim world.
On one side of the discussion sit mostly secular intellectuals horrified by the gore joined by those ordinary Muslims dismayed by the ever more bloody image of Islam around the world. They are determined to find a way
to wrestle the faith back from extremists. Basically the liberals seek to dilute what they criticize as the clerical
monopoly on disseminating interpretations of the sacred texts.
Arrayed against them are powerful religious institutions like Al Azhar University, prominent clerics and a whole
different class of scholars who argue that Islam is under assault by the West. Fighting back with any means possible is the sole defense available to a weaker victim, they say.
The debate, which can be heard in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, is driven primarily by carnage in
Iraq. The hellish stream of images of American soldiers attacking mosques and other targets are juxtaposed with
those of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi beheading civilian victims on his home videos as a Koranic verse including the line
"Smite at their necks" scrolls underneath.
When the mayhem in Iraq slows, events like the slaying in September of more than 300 people at a Russian school -half of them children - or some other attack in the Netherlands, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia or Spain labeled
jihad by its perpetrators serves to fuel discussions on satellite television, in newspapers and around the dinner
tables of ordinary Muslims.
"Resistance was never like this - to kidnap someone and decapitate him in front of everyone," said Ibrahim Said,
delivering pastry in the Cairo neighborhood of Nasser City recently.
"This is haram," he went on, using the Arabic word for something forbidden or shameful, and then quotes the Koran
on his own. " 'Verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change it themselves.' That means
nothing will change unless we change ourselves first."
Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, director of the Dubai-based satellite network Al Arabiya and a well-known Saudi
journalist, created a ruckus this fall with a newspaper column saying Muslims must confront the fact that most
terrorist acts are perpetrated by Muslims.
"The danger specifically comes from the ideas and the preaching of violence in the name of religion," he said,
adding, "I am more convinced there is a problem with the culture, the modern culture of radicalism, which people
have to admit. Without recognizing that as fact number one, that statistically speaking most terrorists are Muslims, we won't be able to solve it."
Mr. Rashed senses there is a movement in the Arab world, if perhaps not yet a consensus, that understands that Muslims have to start reining in their own rather than constantly complaining about injustice and unfairness. The violence has not only reduced sympathy for just causes like ending the Israeli occupation, he says, but set off resentment against Muslims wherever they live.
On the other side is Abdel Sabour Shahin, a linguistics professor at Cairo University and a talk show stalwart, who
says the Muslim world must defend itself and most foreigners in Iraq are fair game. In the new middle-class
suburbs stretching into the desert beyond the Pyramids, Professor Shahin greets visitors inside a small gated
compound of high white walls that includes his own mosque where he preaches each Friday.
"There is a large group of people who wear civilian clothes but serve the occupying forces," he said. "So how can we
demand from someone who is resisting the occupation to ask first if the person is a civilian or not?"
When asked what he thinks of those who chop off heads, he responds: "When a missile hits a house it decapitates 30 or 40 residents and turns them to ash. Isn't there a need to compare the behavior of a person under siege and angry with those who are managing the instruments of war?"
His remarks echo those of Sheik Yousef Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born, now Qatari cleric whose program "Islamic Law
and Life" on Al Jazeera satellite television makes him about the most influential cleric among mainstream Sunni
Muslims, the majority sect.
Last August Sheik Qaradawi seemed to imply that all Americans in Iraq could be targets. Asked whether that
included civilians, the sheik responded with a question, "Are there civilians in Iraq?" In the ensuing uproar across
the region he issued a clarification, suggesting that he meant only those who abetted the occupation, and pointed
out that he had previously condemned beheadings.
Yet late last month, right after the renewed United States assault on Falluja, the sheik again put the Islamic seal of
approval on anyone fighting back.
"Resistance is a legitimate matter - even more, it is a duty," he said on television.
While few Muslims argue with the right to resist a military occupation, the problem is that such sweeping, ill-defined statements are interpreted as a mandate to undertake any violence, no matter how vicious.
"You condemn the beheading and then on a different question you say anybody who supports the occupation is worth fighting," said Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi expert on Islamic movements. "So the message does not sink in."
In November, 26 prominent Saudi clerics signed a petition supporting the "defensive jihad" in Iraq. Although their
statement ruled out attacking relief workers or other uninvolved parties, it was interpreted as a signal for
Saudis to volunteer. Osama bin Laden and his followers emerged from a similar call 25 years ago to fight in
Afghanistan, a fight that they subsequently spread around the globe.
The discussion on the reinterpretation of Islam remains largely confined to an intellectual elite, but even raising
the topic erodes the taboo that the religion and those schooled in it are somehow infallible. There are no opinion
polls on the subject, but in talking to people on the streets, one gets the sense that they are grappling with
these issues within their own understanding of their faith.
Some utterly reject any criticism and immediately identify Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush as those
bearing the most responsibility for the butchery. They inevitably also mention the abuse of prisoners at Abu
Ghraib as needing to be avenged.
But others exhibit a certain introspection.
One sense of the growing public dismay in the Arab world is the muted reaction to the Falluja assault last month compared with the one six months ago. This has been partly attributed to the atrocities committed by the insurgents, including suicide attacks killing many Iraqis.
The wide public sympathy enjoyed by those fighting the American or Israeli soldiers, however, makes it difficult
to mount any campaign against violence and terrorism, advocates of a change say.
Proponents of jihad argue that it is only natural for Iraqis and Palestinians to fight back, and point to what
they call American hypocrisy.
Sheik Khalil al-Mais, the mufti of Zahle and the Bekaa region in Lebanon, compares the treatment of two despots,
Saddam Hussein and Muammar el-Qaddafi, both with a long history of abusing dissidents and other ills. One did not
yield to the West, while the other abandoned his unconventional weapons programs.
"Qaddafi bought his way out, but Qaddafi is still Qaddafi," the sheik said, donning his carefully wrapped white turban before leaving to deliver a Friday Prayer sermon. "Why did they put Saddam in jail and leave Qaddafi in power? America should not talk about principles."
Asked about those who say the problem lies deep within restrictive interpretations of Islam itself, Sheik Mais
grimaced and exclaimed, "Take refuge in God!" summing up the viewpoint of most Islamic scholars.
You cannot divide Islam into pieces, he says. You have to take it as a whole.
But whose whole, the would-be reformists respond, lamenting what one Saudi writer calls "fatwa chaos." A important difficulty under Sunni Islam, as opposed to, say, the Shiite branch predominant in Iran or the Catholic Church, is that there is no central authority to issue ultimate rulings on doctrinal questions.
Those in the liberal trend believe that Islam, now entering its 15th century, needs to undergo a wholesale
re-examination of its basic principles. Toward that end, the Cairo conference this fall recommended reviewing the
roots of Islamic heritage, especially the Prophet's sayings, ending the monopoly that certain religious
institutions hold over interpreting such texts and confronting all extremist religious currents.
Those taking part were harshly accused of dabbling in a realm that belongs solely to the clergy, with the grand
sheik of Al Azhar, Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, Egypt's most senior religious scholar, labeling them a "group of
outcasts."
But Mr. Shahrour says he and an increasing number of intellectuals cannot be deterred by clerical opposition.
He describes as ridiculously archaic some Hadith, or sayings, attributed to Muhammad - all assembled in nine
bulky volumes some 100 years after his death and now the last word on how the faithful should live.
"It is like this now because for centuries Muslims have been told that Islam was spread by the sword, that all Arab
countries and even Spain were captured by the sword and we are proud of that," he said. "In the minds of ordinary
people, people on the street, the religion of Islam is the religion of the sword. This is the culture, and we have to
change it."
Interpretation of faith in Islam
Asslamu aleikum min Mowla Hazir Imam!
This shows, once again, how Nizari Ismailism has kept Islam pure and undefiled and how it continues to occupy a position of great importance in Islam.
As a non-Ismaili, it is very clear that the Ismaili jamaat has a very crucial role in not only helping non-Muslims understand the diversity within Islam (as well as the belief that warfare is not an intrinsic part of Islam) but also help Muslims themselves see the diversity amongst themselves and help them open their minds and hearts to the purer teachings, beliefs, and practices of Islam.
All that is needed, of course, is action.
Mowla hafiz,
ON
This shows, once again, how Nizari Ismailism has kept Islam pure and undefiled and how it continues to occupy a position of great importance in Islam.
As a non-Ismaili, it is very clear that the Ismaili jamaat has a very crucial role in not only helping non-Muslims understand the diversity within Islam (as well as the belief that warfare is not an intrinsic part of Islam) but also help Muslims themselves see the diversity amongst themselves and help them open their minds and hearts to the purer teachings, beliefs, and practices of Islam.
All that is needed, of course, is action.
Mowla hafiz,
ON
Sharia Issue on Apostates
To illuminate the issues of reinterpretation of faith facing the Islamic world, the following is a news item that appeared in today's Calgary Herald about Prince Charles brokering on an issue stemming from an archaic Islamic law.
Charles brokers Islamic talks
Jonathan Petre
The Telegraph
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Prince Charles is brokering efforts to end the Muslim death penalty on converts to other faiths, The Telegraph has learned.
He held a private summit of Christian and Muslim leaders at Clarence House this month to explore the centuries-old Islamic law, under which apostates face persecution and even death.
His intervention follows mounting anger at the treatment of Muslims who have converted to Christianity in a number of Islamic states.
As an advocate of inter-faith dialogue, the Prince has come under pressure to criticize the religious law that, campaigners say, has resulted in hundreds of executions in countries from Iran to Sudan.
Among the Christians at the confidential meeting was an Anglican archbishop from a part of Nigeria where Islamic Sharia law is enforced.
Others included the Bishop of London, the Rev. Richard Chartres, and the Pakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali.
It is understood that the Muslim group, which included the Islamic scholar Zaki Badawi, cautioned the Prince and other non-Muslims against speaking publicly on the issue.
It argued that Islamic moderates could have more influence on the traditional position if the debate remained largely internal.
© The Calgary Herald 2004
Charles brokers Islamic talks
Jonathan Petre
The Telegraph
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Prince Charles is brokering efforts to end the Muslim death penalty on converts to other faiths, The Telegraph has learned.
He held a private summit of Christian and Muslim leaders at Clarence House this month to explore the centuries-old Islamic law, under which apostates face persecution and even death.
His intervention follows mounting anger at the treatment of Muslims who have converted to Christianity in a number of Islamic states.
As an advocate of inter-faith dialogue, the Prince has come under pressure to criticize the religious law that, campaigners say, has resulted in hundreds of executions in countries from Iran to Sudan.
Among the Christians at the confidential meeting was an Anglican archbishop from a part of Nigeria where Islamic Sharia law is enforced.
Others included the Bishop of London, the Rev. Richard Chartres, and the Pakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali.
It is understood that the Muslim group, which included the Islamic scholar Zaki Badawi, cautioned the Prince and other non-Muslims against speaking publicly on the issue.
It argued that Islamic moderates could have more influence on the traditional position if the debate remained largely internal.
© The Calgary Herald 2004
An Initiative to Combat terrorism
MHI on numerous occasions has underlined the main cause of terrorism as being poverty. The following article in today’s Calgary Herald describes an initiative to combat poverty in the heartland of fundamentalist Islam.
U.S. takes hearts and mind campaign to fundamentalist heartland
Jim Farrell
CanWest News Service
FORWARD OPERATING BASE RIPLEY, TARIN KOWT, Afghanistan - Like an outpost of the Roman Empire, Forward Operating Base Ripley squats in a distant and dusty plain, encircled by the snow-capped mountains of central Afghanistan.
Ripley's walls comprise an eight-kilometre-long palisade of wire and paper bins called Hesco Bastions. Each bastion is 1.5 metres in diameter and two metres high and filled with gravel to protect against a rocket attack. As in an imperial outpost where locals served with Romans, Afghans work alongside Americans, slinging rifles and doing much of the camp's day-to-day work.
Ripley is located in the Islamic fundamentalist heartland that gave birth to the Taliban. Its existence speaks of America's determination that never again will terrorists use a failed Third World state as a training ground.
"Make no mistake, the 9-11 terrorist plot wasn't hatched in Kandahar or Kabul," Lt.-Col. Bill LaFontaine said Tuesday.
"It was hatched right over there, in Tarin Kowt. This was a fertile breeding ground for people who wanted to do mischief."
LaFontaine runs the area's provincial reconstruction team, a collaboration between the U.S. State Department, the United States government's main aid agency, the American army and local Afghan officials. That collaboration is intended to make friends of provincial officials, tribal chieftains and village elders by supplying aid, security and advice.
LaFontaine's 10-acre brick-walled compound anchors Ripley's west flank. Most of the work that went into constructing the PRT's masonry barracks and administrative centre was done by Afghans, providing much-needed work and salaries.
That work includes the widening and paving of the road linking Tarin Kowt to Kandahar, 100 kilometres to the south. During the Soviet occupation, the Russians dubbed the route the "Road to Hell" after many of their convoys were ambushed by mujahedeen. It's the U.S. hope the improved road will serve as a major economic corridor that will breathe prosperity into the area and prompt farmers to switch from poppy production to legitimate cash crops.
"We'll soon get delivery of two road graders, two compactors, a bulldozer and a rock crusher from the United States forces," said LaFontaine.After being trained to use them, the machines will be turned over to the Afghans.
"There has been a paradigm shift in the past year," says Capt. Robert Creason, one of Ripley's operations officers. "It was war-fighting. It's now nation-building in a combat zone.
"The Americans hope that someday their work will be finished and they can go home, leaving Ripley's permanent facilities - its generators, masonry buildings, its plywood-walled gymnasium, the immense area covered by crushed rock to keep down the dust - for the Afghan national army. That's why Ripley's wiring system includes both North American 110-volt outlets and Asian 220-volt connectors.
A 1,500-metre landing strip of compacted earth on Ripley's southern flank allowed C-130 Hercules transports to deliver container loads of supplies and equipment. Most deliveries are now performed by massive twin-rotor Chinook helicopters or by Afghan "jingle trucks," named for the rows of decorative chains hanging from their bumpers.
At the west end of the base are four 105-millimetre howitzers. Each gun is light enough to be airlifted by a Chinook, together with the Humvee vehicle needed to tow it. Each has a range a Second World War navy captain would envy.
With its rocket-assisted shells, the guns hit targets up to 19 kilometres away."At seven kilometres, we try to get them to land within a 30-metre radius," says Staff Sgt. Marshall Poland, the soldier who operates the guns' computerized aiming system.
Using anti-personnel rounds set to burst nine metres off the ground, each shell has a 35-metre kill radius and a 90-metre wounding radius. By way of comparison, insurgents who targeted Ripley a half-dozen times in the past six months with Soviet- or Chinese-manufactured rockets never landed a single round within its perimeter.
Six months ago, Ripley's howitzers were used in an operation against 40 to 50 hostile soldiers - either Taliban or anti-coalition militia. The Americans estimate they killed 15 of the enemy, nine with artillery fire. The survivors melted into the local population.
Walk back towards the centre of the camp, toward the soldiers' plywood-and-canvas sleeping quarters and you pass a fully equipped gymnasium. Fearful its soldiers will get out of shape and lose their physical fighting edge, the army provides weightlifting equipment and aerobics machines to its most-remote outposts. The camp's officers plan to supplement the gym with a baseball diamond, a soccer pitch and a football field.
The camp's forward surgical facility is located near the gym. It deals with minor wounds and everyday illnesses, but can also stabilize severely wounded patients and prepare them for helicopter evacuation to Kandahar. Unlike the Canadian hospital facility in Camp Julien on Kabul's southern fringe, Ripley's forward surgical team also treats Afghans if they get a note from the Afghan-operated clinic in the nearby town. If severely wounded, Afghans need only show up at Ripley's gate."Our criteria are life, limb or eyesight," says Sgt. Gerald Gaines, an operating room tech from Copperas Cove, Texas. "If they are in danger of losing any of those, we treat them."
© Calgary Herald 2005
U.S. takes hearts and mind campaign to fundamentalist heartland
Jim Farrell
CanWest News Service
FORWARD OPERATING BASE RIPLEY, TARIN KOWT, Afghanistan - Like an outpost of the Roman Empire, Forward Operating Base Ripley squats in a distant and dusty plain, encircled by the snow-capped mountains of central Afghanistan.
Ripley's walls comprise an eight-kilometre-long palisade of wire and paper bins called Hesco Bastions. Each bastion is 1.5 metres in diameter and two metres high and filled with gravel to protect against a rocket attack. As in an imperial outpost where locals served with Romans, Afghans work alongside Americans, slinging rifles and doing much of the camp's day-to-day work.
Ripley is located in the Islamic fundamentalist heartland that gave birth to the Taliban. Its existence speaks of America's determination that never again will terrorists use a failed Third World state as a training ground.
"Make no mistake, the 9-11 terrorist plot wasn't hatched in Kandahar or Kabul," Lt.-Col. Bill LaFontaine said Tuesday.
"It was hatched right over there, in Tarin Kowt. This was a fertile breeding ground for people who wanted to do mischief."
LaFontaine runs the area's provincial reconstruction team, a collaboration between the U.S. State Department, the United States government's main aid agency, the American army and local Afghan officials. That collaboration is intended to make friends of provincial officials, tribal chieftains and village elders by supplying aid, security and advice.
LaFontaine's 10-acre brick-walled compound anchors Ripley's west flank. Most of the work that went into constructing the PRT's masonry barracks and administrative centre was done by Afghans, providing much-needed work and salaries.
That work includes the widening and paving of the road linking Tarin Kowt to Kandahar, 100 kilometres to the south. During the Soviet occupation, the Russians dubbed the route the "Road to Hell" after many of their convoys were ambushed by mujahedeen. It's the U.S. hope the improved road will serve as a major economic corridor that will breathe prosperity into the area and prompt farmers to switch from poppy production to legitimate cash crops.
"We'll soon get delivery of two road graders, two compactors, a bulldozer and a rock crusher from the United States forces," said LaFontaine.After being trained to use them, the machines will be turned over to the Afghans.
"There has been a paradigm shift in the past year," says Capt. Robert Creason, one of Ripley's operations officers. "It was war-fighting. It's now nation-building in a combat zone.
"The Americans hope that someday their work will be finished and they can go home, leaving Ripley's permanent facilities - its generators, masonry buildings, its plywood-walled gymnasium, the immense area covered by crushed rock to keep down the dust - for the Afghan national army. That's why Ripley's wiring system includes both North American 110-volt outlets and Asian 220-volt connectors.
A 1,500-metre landing strip of compacted earth on Ripley's southern flank allowed C-130 Hercules transports to deliver container loads of supplies and equipment. Most deliveries are now performed by massive twin-rotor Chinook helicopters or by Afghan "jingle trucks," named for the rows of decorative chains hanging from their bumpers.
At the west end of the base are four 105-millimetre howitzers. Each gun is light enough to be airlifted by a Chinook, together with the Humvee vehicle needed to tow it. Each has a range a Second World War navy captain would envy.
With its rocket-assisted shells, the guns hit targets up to 19 kilometres away."At seven kilometres, we try to get them to land within a 30-metre radius," says Staff Sgt. Marshall Poland, the soldier who operates the guns' computerized aiming system.
Using anti-personnel rounds set to burst nine metres off the ground, each shell has a 35-metre kill radius and a 90-metre wounding radius. By way of comparison, insurgents who targeted Ripley a half-dozen times in the past six months with Soviet- or Chinese-manufactured rockets never landed a single round within its perimeter.
Six months ago, Ripley's howitzers were used in an operation against 40 to 50 hostile soldiers - either Taliban or anti-coalition militia. The Americans estimate they killed 15 of the enemy, nine with artillery fire. The survivors melted into the local population.
Walk back towards the centre of the camp, toward the soldiers' plywood-and-canvas sleeping quarters and you pass a fully equipped gymnasium. Fearful its soldiers will get out of shape and lose their physical fighting edge, the army provides weightlifting equipment and aerobics machines to its most-remote outposts. The camp's officers plan to supplement the gym with a baseball diamond, a soccer pitch and a football field.
The camp's forward surgical facility is located near the gym. It deals with minor wounds and everyday illnesses, but can also stabilize severely wounded patients and prepare them for helicopter evacuation to Kandahar. Unlike the Canadian hospital facility in Camp Julien on Kabul's southern fringe, Ripley's forward surgical team also treats Afghans if they get a note from the Afghan-operated clinic in the nearby town. If severely wounded, Afghans need only show up at Ripley's gate."Our criteria are life, limb or eyesight," says Sgt. Gerald Gaines, an operating room tech from Copperas Cove, Texas. "If they are in danger of losing any of those, we treat them."
© Calgary Herald 2005
Review Good Muslim, Bad Muslim - An African Perspective
Subject: Fw: Review Good Muslim, Bad Muslim - An African Perspective
http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/mamdani.htm
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim – An African Perspective
Mahmood Mamdani,
Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Anthropology, Columbia University
Ever since September 11, there has been a growing media interest in Islam. What is the link, many seem to ask, between Islam and terrorism? The Spectator, a British weekly, carried a lead article a few weeks ago that argued that the link was not with all of Islam, but with a very literal interpretation of it. This version, Wahhabi Islam, it warned, was dominant in Saudi Arabia, from where it had been exported both to Afghanistan and the US. This argument was echoed widely in many circles, more recently in the New York Times. This article is born of dissatisfaction with the new wisdom that we must tell apart the Good Muslim from the Bad Muslim.
Culture Talk
Is our world really divided into two, so that one part makes culture and the other is a prisoner of culture? Are there really two meanings of culture? Does culture stand for creativity, for what being human is all about, in one part of the world? But in the other part of the world, it stands for habit, for some kind of instinctive activity, whose rules are inscribed in early founding texts, usually religious, and museumized in early artifacts?
When I read of Islam in the papers these days, I often feel I am reading of museumized peoples. I feel I am reading of people who are said not to make culture, except at the beginning of creation, as some extraordinary, prophetic, act. After that, it seems they just conform to culture. Their culture seems to have no history, no politics, and no debates. It seems just to have petrified into a lifeless custom.
Even more, these people seem incapable of transforming their culture, the way they seem incapable of growing their own food. The implication is that their only salvation lies, as always, in philanthropy, in being saved from the outside.
When I read this, or something like this, I wonder if this world of ours is after all divided into two: on the one hand, savages who must be saved before they destroy us all and, on the other, the civilized whose burden it is to save all?
We are now told to give serious attention to culture. It is said that culture is now a matter of life and death.
But is it really true that people's public behavior, specifically their political behavior, can be read from their religion? Could it be that a person who takes his or her religion literally is a potential terrorist? And only someone who thinks of the text as not literal, but as metaphorical or figurative, is better suited to civic life and the tolerance it calls for?
How, one may ask, does the literal reading of religious texts translate into hijacking, murder, and terrorism?
Some may object that I am presenting a caricature of what we read in the press. After all, is there not less and less talk of the clash of civilizations, and more and more talk of the clash inside civilizations? Is that not the point of the articles I referred to earlier, those in The Spectator and The New York Times? After all, we are now told to distinguish between good Muslims and bad Muslims. Mind you, not between good and bad persons, nor between criminals and civic citizens, who both happen to be Muslims, but between good Muslims and bad Muslims.
We are told that there is a fault line running through Islam, a line that divides moderate Islam, called genuine Islam, and extremist political Islam. The terrorists of September 11, we are told, did not just hijack planes; it is said that they also hijacked Islam, meaning genuine Islam!
Here is one version of the argument that the clash is inside - and not between - civilizations. It is my own construction, but it is not a fabrication. I think of it as an enlightened version, because it does not just speak of the other, but also of self. It has little trace of ethnocentrism. This is how it goes.
Islam and Christianity have one thing in common. Both share a deeply messianic orientation. Each has a conviction that it possesses the truth. Both have a sense of mission to civilize the world. Both consider the world beyond a sea of ignorance, one that needs to be redeemed. Think, for example, of the Arabic word al-Jahaliya, which I have always known to mean the domain of ignorance.
This conviction is so deep-seated that it is even found in its secular version, as in the old colonial notion of "a civilizing mission," or in its more racialized version, "the White Man's Burden." Or simply, in the 19th century American conviction of a "manifest destiny."
In both cultures, Christian and Muslim, these notions have been the subject of prolonged debates. Even if you should claim to know what is good for humanity, how do you proceed? By persuasion or force? Do you convince others of the validity of your truth or do you proceed by imposing it on them? The first alternative gives you reason and evangelism; the second gives you the Crusades.
Take the example of Islam, and the notion of Jihad, which roughly translated means struggle. A student of mine gave me a series of articles written by the Pakistani academic and journalist, Eqbal Ahmed, in the Karachi-based newspaper, Dawn. In one of these articles, Eqbal distinguished between two broad traditions in the understanding of Jihad. The first, called "little Jihad," thinks of Jihad as a struggle against external enemies of Islam. It is an Islamic version of the Christian notion of "just war". The second, called "big Jihad," thinks of Jihad as more of a spiritual struggle against the self in a contaminated world.
All of this is true, but I don't think it explains terrorism. I remain deeply skeptical that we can read people's political behavior from their religion, or from their culture. Remember, it was not so long ago that some claimed that the behavior of others could be read from their genes. Could it be true that an orthodox Muslim is a potential terrorist? Or, the same thing, that an Orthodox Jew is a potential terrorist and only a Reform Jew is capable of being tolerant of those who do not share his convictions?
I am aware that this does not exhaust the question of culture and politics. How do you make sense of politics that consciously wears the mantle of religion? Take, for example the politics of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, both of whom claim to be waging a Jihad, a just war against the enemies of Islam? How do we make sense of this?
I want to suggest that we turn the cultural theory of politics on its head. Rather than see this politics as the outcome of an archaic culture, I suggest we see neither the culture not the politics as archaic, but both as very contemporary outcomes of equally contemporary conditions, relations and conflicts. Instead of dismissing history and politics as does culture talk, I suggest we place cultural debates in historical and political contexts. Terrorism is not a cultural residue in modern politics. Rather, terrorism is a modern construction. Even when it tries to harness one or another aspect of tradition and culture, it puts this at the service of a modern project.
In what follows, I would like to offer you a perspective on contemporary terrorism from an African vantage point.
An African Perspective on Contemporary Terrorism
Eqbal Ahmed writes of a television image from 1985, of Ronald Reagan meeting a group of turbaned men, all Afghani, all leaders of the Mujaheddin. After the meeting, Reagan brought them out into the White House lawn, and introduced them to the media in these words: "These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America's founding fathers."
This was the moment when official America tried to harness one version of Islam in a struggle against the Soviet Union. Before exploring the politics of it, let me clarify the historical moment.
1975 was the year of American defeat in Indochina. 1975 was also the year the Portuguese empire collapsed in Africa. It was the year the center of gravity of the Cold War shifted from Southeast Asia to Southern Africa. The question was: who would pick up the pieces of the Portuguese empire, the US or the Soviet Union?
As the center of gravity of the Cold War shifted, from Southeast Asia to Southern Africa, there was also a shift in US strategy. The Nixon Doctrine had been forged towards the closing years of the Vietnam War but could not be implemented at that late stage - the doctrine that "Asian boys must fight Asian wars" - was really put into practice in Southern Africa. In practice, it translated into a US decision to harness, or even to cultivate, terrorism in the struggle against regimes it considered pro-Soviet. In Southern Africa, the immediate result was a partnership between the US and apartheid South Africa, accused by the UN of perpetrating "a crime against humanity." Reagan termed this new partnership "constructive engagement."
South Africa became both conduit and partner of the US in the hot war against those governments in the region considered pro-Soviet. This partnership bolstered a number of terrorist movements: Renamo in Mozambique, and Unita in Angola. Their terrorism was of a type Africa had never seen before. It was not simply that they were willing to tolerate a higher level of civilian casualties in military confrontations - what official America nowadays calls collateral damage. The new thing was that these terrorist movements specifically targeted civilians. It sought specifically to kill and maim civilians, but not all of them. Always, the idea was to leave a few to go and tell the story, to spread fear. The object of spreading fear was to paralyze government.
In another decade, the center of gravity of the Cold War shifted to Central America, to Nicaragua and El Salvador. And so did the center of gravity of US-sponsored terrorism. The Contras were not only tolerated and shielded by official America; they were actively nurtured and directly assisted, as in the mining of harbors.
The shifting center of gravity of the Cold War was the major context in which Afghanistan policy was framed. But it was not the only context. The minor context was the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Ayatullah Khomeini anointed official America as the "Great Satan," and official Islam as "American Islam." But instead of also addressing the issues - the sources of resentment against official America - the Reagan administration hoped to create a pro-American Islamic lobby.
The grand plan of the Reagan administration was two-pronged. First, it drooled at the prospect of uniting a billion Muslims around a holy war, a Crusade, against the evil empire. I use the word Crusade, not Jihad, because only the notion of Crusade can accurately convey the frame of mind in which this initiative was taken. Second, the Reagan administration hoped to turn a religious schism inside Islam, between minority Shia and majority Sunni, into a political schism. Thereby, it hoped to contain the influence of the Iranian Revolution as a minority Shia affair.
This is the context in which an American/Saudi/Pakistani alliance was forged, and religious madresas turned into political schools for training cadres. The Islamic world had not seen an armed Jihad for centuries. But now the CIA was determined to create one. It was determined to put a version of tradition at the service of politics. We are told that the CIA looked for a Saudi Prince to lead this Crusade. It could not find a Prince. But it settled for the next best, the son of an illustrious family closely connected to the royal family. This was not a backwater family steeped in pre-modernity, but a cosmopolitan family. The Bin Laden family is a patron of scholarship. It endows programs at universities like Harvard and Yale.
The CIA created the Mujaheddin and Bin Laden as alternatives to secular nationalism. Just as, in another context, the Israeli intelligence created Hamas as an alternative to the secular PLO.
Contemporary "fundamentalism" is a modern project, not a traditional leftover. When the Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan, this terror was unleashed on Afghanistan in the name of liberation. As different factions fought over the liberated country - the Northern Alliance against the Taliban - they shelled and destroyed their own cities with artillery.
The Question of Responsibility
To understand the question of who bears responsibility for the present situation, it will help to contrast two situations, that after the Second World War and that after the Cold War, and compare how the question of responsibility was understood and addressed in two different contexts.
In spite of Pearl Harbor, World War Two was fought in Europe and Asia, not in the US. It was not the US which faced physical and civic destruction at the end of the war. The question of responsibility for postwar reconstruction did not just arise as a moral question; it arose as a political question. In Europe, its urgency was underlined by the changing political situation in Yugoslavia, Albania, and particularly, Greece. This is the context in which the US accepted responsibility for restoring conditions for decent life in noncommunist Europe. That initiative was called the Marshall Plan.
The Cold War was not fought in Europe, but in Southeast Asia, in Southern Africa, and in Central America. Should we, ordinary humanity, hold official America responsible for its actions during the Cold War? Should official America be held responsible for napalm bombing and spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam? Should it be held responsible for cultivating terrorist movements in Southern Africa and Central America?
Perhaps no other society paid a higher price for the defeat of the Soviet Union than did Afghanistan. Out of a population of roughly 15 million, a million died, another million and a half were maimed, and another five million became refugees. Afghanistan was a brutalized society even before the present war began.
After the Cold War and right up to September 10 of this year, the US and Britain compelled African countries to reconcile with terrorist movements. The demand was that governments must share power with terrorist organizations in the name of reconciliation - as in Mozambique, in Sierra Leone, and in Angola.
If terrorism was an official American Cold War brew, it was turned into a local Sierra Leonean or Angolan or Mozambican or Afghani brew after the Cold War. Whose responsibility is it? Like Afghanistan, are these countries hosting terrorism, or are they also hostage to terrorism? I think both.
Official America has a habit of not taking responsibility for its own actions. Instead, it habitually looks for a high moral pretext for inaction. I was in Durban at the World Congress Against Racism (WCAR) when the US walked out of it. The Durban conference was about major crimes of the past, about racism, and xenophobia, and related crimes. I returned from Durban to listen to Condoleeza Rice talk about the need to forget slavery because, she said, the pursuit of civilized life requires that we forget the past.
It is true that, unless we learn to forget, life will turn into revenge-seeking. Each of us will have nothing but a catalogue of wrongs done to a long line of ancestors. But civilization cannot be built on just forgetting. We must not only learn to forget, we must also not forget to learn. We must also memorialize, particularly monumental crimes. America was built on two monumental crimes: the genocide of the Native American and the enslavement of the African American. The tendency of official America is to memorialize other peoples' crimes and to forget its own - to seek a high moral ground as a pretext to ignore real issues.
Conclusion
I would like to conclude with the question of responsibility. It is a human tendency to look for others in times of adversity. We seek friends and allies in times of danger. But in times of prosperity, the short-sighted tend to walk away from others. This is why prosperity, and not adversity, is the real litmus test of how we define community. The contemporary history of Southern Africa, Central America, and Afghanistan testifies to this tendency.
Modernity in politics is about moving from exclusion to inclusion, from repression to incorporation. By including those previously excluded, we give those previously alienated a stake in things. By doing so, we broaden the bounds of lived community, and of lived humanity. That perhaps is the real challenge today. It is the recognition that the good life cannot be lived in isolation.
I think of civilization as a constant creation whereby we gradually expand the boundaries of community, the boundaries of those with whom we share the world - this is why it is so grotesque to see bombs and food parcels raining on the defenseless people of Afghanistan from the same source.
http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/mamdani.htm
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim – An African Perspective
Mahmood Mamdani,
Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Anthropology, Columbia University
Ever since September 11, there has been a growing media interest in Islam. What is the link, many seem to ask, between Islam and terrorism? The Spectator, a British weekly, carried a lead article a few weeks ago that argued that the link was not with all of Islam, but with a very literal interpretation of it. This version, Wahhabi Islam, it warned, was dominant in Saudi Arabia, from where it had been exported both to Afghanistan and the US. This argument was echoed widely in many circles, more recently in the New York Times. This article is born of dissatisfaction with the new wisdom that we must tell apart the Good Muslim from the Bad Muslim.
Culture Talk
Is our world really divided into two, so that one part makes culture and the other is a prisoner of culture? Are there really two meanings of culture? Does culture stand for creativity, for what being human is all about, in one part of the world? But in the other part of the world, it stands for habit, for some kind of instinctive activity, whose rules are inscribed in early founding texts, usually religious, and museumized in early artifacts?
When I read of Islam in the papers these days, I often feel I am reading of museumized peoples. I feel I am reading of people who are said not to make culture, except at the beginning of creation, as some extraordinary, prophetic, act. After that, it seems they just conform to culture. Their culture seems to have no history, no politics, and no debates. It seems just to have petrified into a lifeless custom.
Even more, these people seem incapable of transforming their culture, the way they seem incapable of growing their own food. The implication is that their only salvation lies, as always, in philanthropy, in being saved from the outside.
When I read this, or something like this, I wonder if this world of ours is after all divided into two: on the one hand, savages who must be saved before they destroy us all and, on the other, the civilized whose burden it is to save all?
We are now told to give serious attention to culture. It is said that culture is now a matter of life and death.
But is it really true that people's public behavior, specifically their political behavior, can be read from their religion? Could it be that a person who takes his or her religion literally is a potential terrorist? And only someone who thinks of the text as not literal, but as metaphorical or figurative, is better suited to civic life and the tolerance it calls for?
How, one may ask, does the literal reading of religious texts translate into hijacking, murder, and terrorism?
Some may object that I am presenting a caricature of what we read in the press. After all, is there not less and less talk of the clash of civilizations, and more and more talk of the clash inside civilizations? Is that not the point of the articles I referred to earlier, those in The Spectator and The New York Times? After all, we are now told to distinguish between good Muslims and bad Muslims. Mind you, not between good and bad persons, nor between criminals and civic citizens, who both happen to be Muslims, but between good Muslims and bad Muslims.
We are told that there is a fault line running through Islam, a line that divides moderate Islam, called genuine Islam, and extremist political Islam. The terrorists of September 11, we are told, did not just hijack planes; it is said that they also hijacked Islam, meaning genuine Islam!
Here is one version of the argument that the clash is inside - and not between - civilizations. It is my own construction, but it is not a fabrication. I think of it as an enlightened version, because it does not just speak of the other, but also of self. It has little trace of ethnocentrism. This is how it goes.
Islam and Christianity have one thing in common. Both share a deeply messianic orientation. Each has a conviction that it possesses the truth. Both have a sense of mission to civilize the world. Both consider the world beyond a sea of ignorance, one that needs to be redeemed. Think, for example, of the Arabic word al-Jahaliya, which I have always known to mean the domain of ignorance.
This conviction is so deep-seated that it is even found in its secular version, as in the old colonial notion of "a civilizing mission," or in its more racialized version, "the White Man's Burden." Or simply, in the 19th century American conviction of a "manifest destiny."
In both cultures, Christian and Muslim, these notions have been the subject of prolonged debates. Even if you should claim to know what is good for humanity, how do you proceed? By persuasion or force? Do you convince others of the validity of your truth or do you proceed by imposing it on them? The first alternative gives you reason and evangelism; the second gives you the Crusades.
Take the example of Islam, and the notion of Jihad, which roughly translated means struggle. A student of mine gave me a series of articles written by the Pakistani academic and journalist, Eqbal Ahmed, in the Karachi-based newspaper, Dawn. In one of these articles, Eqbal distinguished between two broad traditions in the understanding of Jihad. The first, called "little Jihad," thinks of Jihad as a struggle against external enemies of Islam. It is an Islamic version of the Christian notion of "just war". The second, called "big Jihad," thinks of Jihad as more of a spiritual struggle against the self in a contaminated world.
All of this is true, but I don't think it explains terrorism. I remain deeply skeptical that we can read people's political behavior from their religion, or from their culture. Remember, it was not so long ago that some claimed that the behavior of others could be read from their genes. Could it be true that an orthodox Muslim is a potential terrorist? Or, the same thing, that an Orthodox Jew is a potential terrorist and only a Reform Jew is capable of being tolerant of those who do not share his convictions?
I am aware that this does not exhaust the question of culture and politics. How do you make sense of politics that consciously wears the mantle of religion? Take, for example the politics of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, both of whom claim to be waging a Jihad, a just war against the enemies of Islam? How do we make sense of this?
I want to suggest that we turn the cultural theory of politics on its head. Rather than see this politics as the outcome of an archaic culture, I suggest we see neither the culture not the politics as archaic, but both as very contemporary outcomes of equally contemporary conditions, relations and conflicts. Instead of dismissing history and politics as does culture talk, I suggest we place cultural debates in historical and political contexts. Terrorism is not a cultural residue in modern politics. Rather, terrorism is a modern construction. Even when it tries to harness one or another aspect of tradition and culture, it puts this at the service of a modern project.
In what follows, I would like to offer you a perspective on contemporary terrorism from an African vantage point.
An African Perspective on Contemporary Terrorism
Eqbal Ahmed writes of a television image from 1985, of Ronald Reagan meeting a group of turbaned men, all Afghani, all leaders of the Mujaheddin. After the meeting, Reagan brought them out into the White House lawn, and introduced them to the media in these words: "These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America's founding fathers."
This was the moment when official America tried to harness one version of Islam in a struggle against the Soviet Union. Before exploring the politics of it, let me clarify the historical moment.
1975 was the year of American defeat in Indochina. 1975 was also the year the Portuguese empire collapsed in Africa. It was the year the center of gravity of the Cold War shifted from Southeast Asia to Southern Africa. The question was: who would pick up the pieces of the Portuguese empire, the US or the Soviet Union?
As the center of gravity of the Cold War shifted, from Southeast Asia to Southern Africa, there was also a shift in US strategy. The Nixon Doctrine had been forged towards the closing years of the Vietnam War but could not be implemented at that late stage - the doctrine that "Asian boys must fight Asian wars" - was really put into practice in Southern Africa. In practice, it translated into a US decision to harness, or even to cultivate, terrorism in the struggle against regimes it considered pro-Soviet. In Southern Africa, the immediate result was a partnership between the US and apartheid South Africa, accused by the UN of perpetrating "a crime against humanity." Reagan termed this new partnership "constructive engagement."
South Africa became both conduit and partner of the US in the hot war against those governments in the region considered pro-Soviet. This partnership bolstered a number of terrorist movements: Renamo in Mozambique, and Unita in Angola. Their terrorism was of a type Africa had never seen before. It was not simply that they were willing to tolerate a higher level of civilian casualties in military confrontations - what official America nowadays calls collateral damage. The new thing was that these terrorist movements specifically targeted civilians. It sought specifically to kill and maim civilians, but not all of them. Always, the idea was to leave a few to go and tell the story, to spread fear. The object of spreading fear was to paralyze government.
In another decade, the center of gravity of the Cold War shifted to Central America, to Nicaragua and El Salvador. And so did the center of gravity of US-sponsored terrorism. The Contras were not only tolerated and shielded by official America; they were actively nurtured and directly assisted, as in the mining of harbors.
The shifting center of gravity of the Cold War was the major context in which Afghanistan policy was framed. But it was not the only context. The minor context was the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Ayatullah Khomeini anointed official America as the "Great Satan," and official Islam as "American Islam." But instead of also addressing the issues - the sources of resentment against official America - the Reagan administration hoped to create a pro-American Islamic lobby.
The grand plan of the Reagan administration was two-pronged. First, it drooled at the prospect of uniting a billion Muslims around a holy war, a Crusade, against the evil empire. I use the word Crusade, not Jihad, because only the notion of Crusade can accurately convey the frame of mind in which this initiative was taken. Second, the Reagan administration hoped to turn a religious schism inside Islam, between minority Shia and majority Sunni, into a political schism. Thereby, it hoped to contain the influence of the Iranian Revolution as a minority Shia affair.
This is the context in which an American/Saudi/Pakistani alliance was forged, and religious madresas turned into political schools for training cadres. The Islamic world had not seen an armed Jihad for centuries. But now the CIA was determined to create one. It was determined to put a version of tradition at the service of politics. We are told that the CIA looked for a Saudi Prince to lead this Crusade. It could not find a Prince. But it settled for the next best, the son of an illustrious family closely connected to the royal family. This was not a backwater family steeped in pre-modernity, but a cosmopolitan family. The Bin Laden family is a patron of scholarship. It endows programs at universities like Harvard and Yale.
The CIA created the Mujaheddin and Bin Laden as alternatives to secular nationalism. Just as, in another context, the Israeli intelligence created Hamas as an alternative to the secular PLO.
Contemporary "fundamentalism" is a modern project, not a traditional leftover. When the Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan, this terror was unleashed on Afghanistan in the name of liberation. As different factions fought over the liberated country - the Northern Alliance against the Taliban - they shelled and destroyed their own cities with artillery.
The Question of Responsibility
To understand the question of who bears responsibility for the present situation, it will help to contrast two situations, that after the Second World War and that after the Cold War, and compare how the question of responsibility was understood and addressed in two different contexts.
In spite of Pearl Harbor, World War Two was fought in Europe and Asia, not in the US. It was not the US which faced physical and civic destruction at the end of the war. The question of responsibility for postwar reconstruction did not just arise as a moral question; it arose as a political question. In Europe, its urgency was underlined by the changing political situation in Yugoslavia, Albania, and particularly, Greece. This is the context in which the US accepted responsibility for restoring conditions for decent life in noncommunist Europe. That initiative was called the Marshall Plan.
The Cold War was not fought in Europe, but in Southeast Asia, in Southern Africa, and in Central America. Should we, ordinary humanity, hold official America responsible for its actions during the Cold War? Should official America be held responsible for napalm bombing and spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam? Should it be held responsible for cultivating terrorist movements in Southern Africa and Central America?
Perhaps no other society paid a higher price for the defeat of the Soviet Union than did Afghanistan. Out of a population of roughly 15 million, a million died, another million and a half were maimed, and another five million became refugees. Afghanistan was a brutalized society even before the present war began.
After the Cold War and right up to September 10 of this year, the US and Britain compelled African countries to reconcile with terrorist movements. The demand was that governments must share power with terrorist organizations in the name of reconciliation - as in Mozambique, in Sierra Leone, and in Angola.
If terrorism was an official American Cold War brew, it was turned into a local Sierra Leonean or Angolan or Mozambican or Afghani brew after the Cold War. Whose responsibility is it? Like Afghanistan, are these countries hosting terrorism, or are they also hostage to terrorism? I think both.
Official America has a habit of not taking responsibility for its own actions. Instead, it habitually looks for a high moral pretext for inaction. I was in Durban at the World Congress Against Racism (WCAR) when the US walked out of it. The Durban conference was about major crimes of the past, about racism, and xenophobia, and related crimes. I returned from Durban to listen to Condoleeza Rice talk about the need to forget slavery because, she said, the pursuit of civilized life requires that we forget the past.
It is true that, unless we learn to forget, life will turn into revenge-seeking. Each of us will have nothing but a catalogue of wrongs done to a long line of ancestors. But civilization cannot be built on just forgetting. We must not only learn to forget, we must also not forget to learn. We must also memorialize, particularly monumental crimes. America was built on two monumental crimes: the genocide of the Native American and the enslavement of the African American. The tendency of official America is to memorialize other peoples' crimes and to forget its own - to seek a high moral ground as a pretext to ignore real issues.
Conclusion
I would like to conclude with the question of responsibility. It is a human tendency to look for others in times of adversity. We seek friends and allies in times of danger. But in times of prosperity, the short-sighted tend to walk away from others. This is why prosperity, and not adversity, is the real litmus test of how we define community. The contemporary history of Southern Africa, Central America, and Afghanistan testifies to this tendency.
Modernity in politics is about moving from exclusion to inclusion, from repression to incorporation. By including those previously excluded, we give those previously alienated a stake in things. By doing so, we broaden the bounds of lived community, and of lived humanity. That perhaps is the real challenge today. It is the recognition that the good life cannot be lived in isolation.
I think of civilization as a constant creation whereby we gradually expand the boundaries of community, the boundaries of those with whom we share the world - this is why it is so grotesque to see bombs and food parcels raining on the defenseless people of Afghanistan from the same source.
The following article describes an example of some of the challenges facing the Islamic world as it seeks to come to terms with the modern world. Who will regulate these issues and on whose authority?
Cairo tries to tune 3,500 calls to prayer into one
By Gretchen Peters | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
CAIRO - Nasr Ahmed started delivering the predawn call to prayer at his local mosque in 1947, when he was just a sprightly lad of 10 who loved to play ball in the streets.
Now he hobbles those same narrow lanes stroking a thick gray beard, but he's still known for the robust, clear voice that has awoken the Muslim faithful in his teeming neighborhood for more than a half-century. Perhaps not for much longer, though.
The city government is finalizing plans - first announced last September - to wire Cairo's 3,500 mosques so they will broadcast a live, unified call to prayer that would replace the chaotic cacophony which now bursts forth five times a day, amplified in some places through squeaky speakers.
What would seem to be a simple, modern solution to the din is upsetting both traditionalists and those who see it violating the spirit of more open expression emerging in the region.
The Ministry of Religious Endowments, which oversees public issues of worship, says it's responding to a flood of complaints about high noise levels, especially in tightly populated areas, and argues that it's up to the mosque to set a standard for greater order in this tumultuous megalopolis of 15 million.
But in one of the world's noisiest cities, where incessant honking is deemed vital to pilot a vehicle, and where piling friends and family into a riverboat thumping with music is considered fun, the idea that orderliness might be closer to godliness falls on very deaf ears indeed.
"This plan is haram," declares Mr. Ahmed, using the same Arabic word for 'forbidden' that's slapped on pork products and alcohol. "How can you try to stop something that God has called for?"
The wording of the calls is set, but the way each is sung - melodious or strident - sets a tone for the mosque.
Cairo's government has produced senior religious leaders to reassure people that the plan does not contravene Islamic law, but many Egyptians spot a sinister conspiracy, backed by Washington, to stifle the voices of more conservative religious leaders.
The US government has pressured Cairo on various issues of religious reform, arguing for example that textbooks in many of the country's mosque-backed institutions teach anti-Western principles. But officials here insist there's no nudging from Washington behind this effort, and say the radio broadcasts will feature a revolving group of religious leaders, who will offer a range of religious viewpoints.
But at least one conservative imam has argued that "technologizing" the call to prayer will start the nation down an ungodly path that will one day terminate with people bowing down before TV sets tuned to pictures of Mecca.
Officials point out that many Islamic countries, including Turkey, Jordan, and Yemen unified their calls to prayer years ago, and Muslims there have continued to perform their duty.
But coming as it does at a time when the entire Arab region seems to be taking a tentative step toward greater openness, the bid to unify the call to prayer seems inconsistent to many here.
"Just like every mosque has a different minaret, every mosque has a different voice," says Ashraf, who like many interviewed for this story would not to give his full name.
He works out of the Al Ghuri mosque in Cairo's old city, which has serviced the local community from behind towering ramparts for more than 500 years.
"The call to prayer has always come from here," he says, gesturing to the delicate Mameluk-era minaret, these days slung with a large loudspeaker. "The people won't accept any other way."
But a few independent voices have risen up in support of the government plan.
"The call to prayer, when I first heard it as a child, was beautiful to hear. It wafted over the city in soft and sometimes musical tones," wrote activist Nawal El-Saadawi in the Al Ahram Weekly. "Now it has become a cacophony of strident voices, a threatening call shot through with violence."
Mahmoud Hamdy Zaqzouq, the minister in charge of religious affairs, says he's trying to protect a sizable population here that quietly views the current state of affairs as more rowdy ruckus than religious freedom.
"Everyday I receive complaints from people about the loudspeakers and when I ask them to make official complaints, they say they are afraid of being accused of being infidels," he told the BBC.
Analysts and historians point out that Egyptian authorities have long run into trouble when they tried to regulate religion, and noted that few efforts through the ages to make Cairo less noisy and chaotic have met with success.
"They can't even organize traffic in Midan Tahrir," says political analyst Walid Kazziha, referring to Cairo's congested downtown plaza. "How do they think they are going to regulate the mosques?"
Some argue that a simpler plan might just be to ban amplifiers, and return to the way muezzins called the faithful to prayer in the prophet's day, using just their unamplified voices.
"Won't work any more," harrumphs Mr. Ahmed, who began calling prayers long before his local mosque had a loudspeaker. "Back then they did not have tall buildings and cars. Nowadays, we just have to be louder."
Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links
Cairo tries to tune 3,500 calls to prayer into one
By Gretchen Peters | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
CAIRO - Nasr Ahmed started delivering the predawn call to prayer at his local mosque in 1947, when he was just a sprightly lad of 10 who loved to play ball in the streets.
Now he hobbles those same narrow lanes stroking a thick gray beard, but he's still known for the robust, clear voice that has awoken the Muslim faithful in his teeming neighborhood for more than a half-century. Perhaps not for much longer, though.
The city government is finalizing plans - first announced last September - to wire Cairo's 3,500 mosques so they will broadcast a live, unified call to prayer that would replace the chaotic cacophony which now bursts forth five times a day, amplified in some places through squeaky speakers.
What would seem to be a simple, modern solution to the din is upsetting both traditionalists and those who see it violating the spirit of more open expression emerging in the region.
The Ministry of Religious Endowments, which oversees public issues of worship, says it's responding to a flood of complaints about high noise levels, especially in tightly populated areas, and argues that it's up to the mosque to set a standard for greater order in this tumultuous megalopolis of 15 million.
But in one of the world's noisiest cities, where incessant honking is deemed vital to pilot a vehicle, and where piling friends and family into a riverboat thumping with music is considered fun, the idea that orderliness might be closer to godliness falls on very deaf ears indeed.
"This plan is haram," declares Mr. Ahmed, using the same Arabic word for 'forbidden' that's slapped on pork products and alcohol. "How can you try to stop something that God has called for?"
The wording of the calls is set, but the way each is sung - melodious or strident - sets a tone for the mosque.
Cairo's government has produced senior religious leaders to reassure people that the plan does not contravene Islamic law, but many Egyptians spot a sinister conspiracy, backed by Washington, to stifle the voices of more conservative religious leaders.
The US government has pressured Cairo on various issues of religious reform, arguing for example that textbooks in many of the country's mosque-backed institutions teach anti-Western principles. But officials here insist there's no nudging from Washington behind this effort, and say the radio broadcasts will feature a revolving group of religious leaders, who will offer a range of religious viewpoints.
But at least one conservative imam has argued that "technologizing" the call to prayer will start the nation down an ungodly path that will one day terminate with people bowing down before TV sets tuned to pictures of Mecca.
Officials point out that many Islamic countries, including Turkey, Jordan, and Yemen unified their calls to prayer years ago, and Muslims there have continued to perform their duty.
But coming as it does at a time when the entire Arab region seems to be taking a tentative step toward greater openness, the bid to unify the call to prayer seems inconsistent to many here.
"Just like every mosque has a different minaret, every mosque has a different voice," says Ashraf, who like many interviewed for this story would not to give his full name.
He works out of the Al Ghuri mosque in Cairo's old city, which has serviced the local community from behind towering ramparts for more than 500 years.
"The call to prayer has always come from here," he says, gesturing to the delicate Mameluk-era minaret, these days slung with a large loudspeaker. "The people won't accept any other way."
But a few independent voices have risen up in support of the government plan.
"The call to prayer, when I first heard it as a child, was beautiful to hear. It wafted over the city in soft and sometimes musical tones," wrote activist Nawal El-Saadawi in the Al Ahram Weekly. "Now it has become a cacophony of strident voices, a threatening call shot through with violence."
Mahmoud Hamdy Zaqzouq, the minister in charge of religious affairs, says he's trying to protect a sizable population here that quietly views the current state of affairs as more rowdy ruckus than religious freedom.
"Everyday I receive complaints from people about the loudspeakers and when I ask them to make official complaints, they say they are afraid of being accused of being infidels," he told the BBC.
Analysts and historians point out that Egyptian authorities have long run into trouble when they tried to regulate religion, and noted that few efforts through the ages to make Cairo less noisy and chaotic have met with success.
"They can't even organize traffic in Midan Tahrir," says political analyst Walid Kazziha, referring to Cairo's congested downtown plaza. "How do they think they are going to regulate the mosques?"
Some argue that a simpler plan might just be to ban amplifiers, and return to the way muezzins called the faithful to prayer in the prophet's day, using just their unamplified voices.
"Won't work any more," harrumphs Mr. Ahmed, who began calling prayers long before his local mosque had a loudspeaker. "Back then they did not have tall buildings and cars. Nowadays, we just have to be louder."
Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links
The following article is about the controversy created by a Muslim woman leading prayers in a church in the US. What is interesting about it is that there are clearly issues of modernity that need to be acknowledged by Islamic tradition. How to integrate women into faith. Perhaps our Tariqah can lead other Muslims on these issues.
Muslims in America
Woman led Muslim Friday service despite illegitimacy
By Mounir El Boughdadi 3/19/2005 | 5:23 pm GMT
A female professor has broken with Islamic tradition by leading the Friday prayer service in a New York chapel, where men and women sat together, sparking outrage among religious scholars in the Middle East who affirmed that what she did was against Islamic Shari'a (law).
Amina Wadud leading Muslim Friday prayers. AFP
The event, heavily protected by police forces, was held at the Synod House, a small chapel next to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan's Upper West Side in New York, after several locations had refused to host the service.
The Muslim Women's Freedom Tour, a US grass-roots organisation, and the Web site MuslimWakeUp.com sponsored the service, said to Reuters.
According to Islamic traditions, Muslim women sit separately from men in worship services and, in some places, enter mosques through a back or side door. Orthodox Jews also segregate men from women during religious services. Roman Catholics do not allow women to hold important leadership roles.
Amina Wadud, an associate professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led the Islamic weekly service where 50 men and women prayed behind her, after she delivered the sermon, thus defying the basic Islamic rules.
Wadud said at a news conference before the service that she didn't want to "change Muslim mosques, but to encourage the hearts of Muslim men and women to believe that they are equal." She added that she wished to help remove "artificial and inconvenient restrictions" aimed at Muslim women.
Outraged Muslims gathered outside the chapel accusing Wadud of betraying Muslim fundamental principles.
"That woman does not represent Islam at all. This is blasphemy, and the penalty for blasphemy is death and that is what this woman deserves," said a protester named Nussrah.
"Today, Muslim women are moving from the back of the mosque to the front of the mosque," said Esra Nomani, the lead organiser of the service. "This is a historic event," she added.
Nomani created an uproar last year by entering her Morgantown, West Virginia, mosque through the front door. Some critics accused her of using this event to publicise her new book about women and Islam.
Contradictions and principles
Wadud just before leading the prayer service. The unveiled woman behind her is probably Suheyla al-Attar, the person who called to prayers. AFP
The Guardian said that, at the same event, an American woman of Egyptian descent, Suheyla al-Attar, who didn't wear the Islamic traditional headscarf, called to starting the prayer. A simple rule for a Muslim woman is to cover all her body but the face and hands while praying. Furthermore, the Shari'a specifies that only men are allowed to call to prayer.
Women in Islam have to abstain from raising their voices in the presence of strange men (apart from their families and relatives).
However, a woman can lead a prayer service, but only among other women or children. She also must not stand alone in the front of the group, as does a male Imam (prayer leader), but should be in the middle of the first row and very slightly ahead of the other women next to her.
Another of Wadud's contraventions of Islamic traditions is that Muslims never pray in churches or synagogues, in remembrance of a historic Caliph who ordered his soldiers not to pray in churches, fearing that they might take it as an excuse to destroy other faiths' holy places.
One of the basic reasons preventing a woman from raising her voice in Islamic mixed gatherings or religious services is that it might distract men's attention and even lead them to lose their spiritual purity while worshiping.
Mosques, which cannot be accessed by Muslims (men and women) unless purified by ablution, are meant to host believers for spiritual purposes. Thus, women take a separate space usually in the rear part of the mosque or in an upstairs floor, since performing prayers, which include kneeling and prostration, could display their bodies in inappropriate positions.
Muslims in America
Woman led Muslim Friday service despite illegitimacy
By Mounir El Boughdadi 3/19/2005 | 5:23 pm GMT
A female professor has broken with Islamic tradition by leading the Friday prayer service in a New York chapel, where men and women sat together, sparking outrage among religious scholars in the Middle East who affirmed that what she did was against Islamic Shari'a (law).
Amina Wadud leading Muslim Friday prayers. AFP
The event, heavily protected by police forces, was held at the Synod House, a small chapel next to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan's Upper West Side in New York, after several locations had refused to host the service.
The Muslim Women's Freedom Tour, a US grass-roots organisation, and the Web site MuslimWakeUp.com sponsored the service, said to Reuters.
According to Islamic traditions, Muslim women sit separately from men in worship services and, in some places, enter mosques through a back or side door. Orthodox Jews also segregate men from women during religious services. Roman Catholics do not allow women to hold important leadership roles.
Amina Wadud, an associate professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led the Islamic weekly service where 50 men and women prayed behind her, after she delivered the sermon, thus defying the basic Islamic rules.
Wadud said at a news conference before the service that she didn't want to "change Muslim mosques, but to encourage the hearts of Muslim men and women to believe that they are equal." She added that she wished to help remove "artificial and inconvenient restrictions" aimed at Muslim women.
Outraged Muslims gathered outside the chapel accusing Wadud of betraying Muslim fundamental principles.
"That woman does not represent Islam at all. This is blasphemy, and the penalty for blasphemy is death and that is what this woman deserves," said a protester named Nussrah.
"Today, Muslim women are moving from the back of the mosque to the front of the mosque," said Esra Nomani, the lead organiser of the service. "This is a historic event," she added.
Nomani created an uproar last year by entering her Morgantown, West Virginia, mosque through the front door. Some critics accused her of using this event to publicise her new book about women and Islam.
Contradictions and principles
Wadud just before leading the prayer service. The unveiled woman behind her is probably Suheyla al-Attar, the person who called to prayers. AFP
The Guardian said that, at the same event, an American woman of Egyptian descent, Suheyla al-Attar, who didn't wear the Islamic traditional headscarf, called to starting the prayer. A simple rule for a Muslim woman is to cover all her body but the face and hands while praying. Furthermore, the Shari'a specifies that only men are allowed to call to prayer.
Women in Islam have to abstain from raising their voices in the presence of strange men (apart from their families and relatives).
However, a woman can lead a prayer service, but only among other women or children. She also must not stand alone in the front of the group, as does a male Imam (prayer leader), but should be in the middle of the first row and very slightly ahead of the other women next to her.
Another of Wadud's contraventions of Islamic traditions is that Muslims never pray in churches or synagogues, in remembrance of a historic Caliph who ordered his soldiers not to pray in churches, fearing that they might take it as an excuse to destroy other faiths' holy places.
One of the basic reasons preventing a woman from raising her voice in Islamic mixed gatherings or religious services is that it might distract men's attention and even lead them to lose their spiritual purity while worshiping.
Mosques, which cannot be accessed by Muslims (men and women) unless purified by ablution, are meant to host believers for spiritual purposes. Thus, women take a separate space usually in the rear part of the mosque or in an upstairs floor, since performing prayers, which include kneeling and prostration, could display their bodies in inappropriate positions.
The following article expresses the revulsion felt for the explanations offered by various authorities on the issue of women not being allowed to lead prayers which was discussed in the previous post. Although the language may not be appropriate, the sentiments are quite stunning and can damage the image of Islam in the eyes of others. Clearly there is a need for reinterpretation ('ijtihad') on these issues.
Women Imams !
A woman leads prayers? What's left of Moslem men's dignity?
By: Siamack Baniameri
March 29, 2005
On Friday March 18, 2005, something interesting happened. Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led an Islamic prayer service before a congregation of 100 Moslem men and women at Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan. As expected, a few hours later, all hell broke loose.
The imam of a London mosque declared the practice against Islam. A woman should never lead prayers, he elaborated, because during the menstrual cycle, there is always the possibility of an accident during the service: if a man happens to glance at the female imam's behind and spots blood, then the gates of heaven will forever be shut to the poor chump.
Thank you, dear imam, for clarifying a few things for me. First of all, I had no idea women bled from their behind during the menstrual cycle. I guess that means I was pulled out of my mother's ass. Silly me... I was completely in the dark.
Secondly, as an avid ass-looker, I can assure the good imam that in all my years of looking at women's behinds from all different angles, I've never spotted blood. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough. Who knows? Maybe the imam is a better ass-looker than I am! I've never claimed to be good at anything.
And by the way, I didn't know there's a shortage of tampons in London. What's up with that?
Meanwhile Soad Saleh, who heads the Islamic department of the women's college at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, said women should not lead prayers because "the woman's body, even if veiled, stirs desires."
What can I say? Like many of my Middle Eastern brothers, I have a lifetime subscription to Play Veil magazine. Miss January was absolutely gorgeous and even though I couldn't see anything behind her veil, in some perverted way, she stirred my desires.
I can't explain it. Only we Middle Eastern men are capable of looking at women who are covered under lumps of unforgiving black sheets and feel aroused. Heck, I sometimes look at drapes hanging from windows and get horny!
According to Ms. Saleh, we Middle Eastern men are sexually so out of control that there's a strong chance we might hump a female imam in the middle of Friday prayers. Thank you Ms. Saleh! Thank you very much for your in-sight!
But I think the best line came from the cleric of a mosque in Saudi Arabia. The honorable sheikh expressed outrage by mentioning several times, "how can a woman who touches her husband's organ lead a prayer... it is inconceivable!"
Obviously the sheikh is unaware that married women do not touch their husband's organ. As a matter of fact that's the main reason women get married ... so they don't have to touch, fondle or stroke any part of a man's body. In fact women are done with sex the day after they get married. Obviously the sheikh is enjoying an unusually active sex-life with his wife.
I feel the anger of my fellow fundamentalist brothers. We're not only challenged by an intellectual who knows her Islam but, even worse, we're challenged by a woman. The very fact that a woman is more intelligent, and makes no apologies for it, insults our very existence.
This has nothing to do with Islam; it's about what we've learned from our fathers and grandfathers. This is about money and power -- the very essence of our manhood. This is not about menstrual cycles, stirring desires or fondling organs. It's about fear and insecurity. Nothing is more intimidating to a man than a woman who sees right through him.
Personally, as an Iranian Moslem man, it would be a privilege and honor to stand behind a female imam and pray to my God. I promise I'll never glance at her behind -- unless, of course, God has blessed her with one that is too divine to ignore.
Who knows? Maybe one day women can have several husbands too. Reversal of fortune is entertaining -- don't you think? Maybe we'll see the day when women with their Gucci purses and Prada shoes walk in front and we follow them two steps behind covered in thick dark sheets, pushing strollers and gasping for air. Imagine me and the sheikh and a couple of other fellows being some woman's bitches. Oh, the payback!
About
Siamack Baniameri is the author of The Iranican Dream, (Virtualbookworm.com Publishing, December 2004). Also see Iranican-Dream.com.
This article was first published in iranian.com
Women Imams !
A woman leads prayers? What's left of Moslem men's dignity?
By: Siamack Baniameri
March 29, 2005
On Friday March 18, 2005, something interesting happened. Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led an Islamic prayer service before a congregation of 100 Moslem men and women at Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan. As expected, a few hours later, all hell broke loose.
The imam of a London mosque declared the practice against Islam. A woman should never lead prayers, he elaborated, because during the menstrual cycle, there is always the possibility of an accident during the service: if a man happens to glance at the female imam's behind and spots blood, then the gates of heaven will forever be shut to the poor chump.
Thank you, dear imam, for clarifying a few things for me. First of all, I had no idea women bled from their behind during the menstrual cycle. I guess that means I was pulled out of my mother's ass. Silly me... I was completely in the dark.
Secondly, as an avid ass-looker, I can assure the good imam that in all my years of looking at women's behinds from all different angles, I've never spotted blood. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough. Who knows? Maybe the imam is a better ass-looker than I am! I've never claimed to be good at anything.
And by the way, I didn't know there's a shortage of tampons in London. What's up with that?
Meanwhile Soad Saleh, who heads the Islamic department of the women's college at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, said women should not lead prayers because "the woman's body, even if veiled, stirs desires."
What can I say? Like many of my Middle Eastern brothers, I have a lifetime subscription to Play Veil magazine. Miss January was absolutely gorgeous and even though I couldn't see anything behind her veil, in some perverted way, she stirred my desires.
I can't explain it. Only we Middle Eastern men are capable of looking at women who are covered under lumps of unforgiving black sheets and feel aroused. Heck, I sometimes look at drapes hanging from windows and get horny!
According to Ms. Saleh, we Middle Eastern men are sexually so out of control that there's a strong chance we might hump a female imam in the middle of Friday prayers. Thank you Ms. Saleh! Thank you very much for your in-sight!
But I think the best line came from the cleric of a mosque in Saudi Arabia. The honorable sheikh expressed outrage by mentioning several times, "how can a woman who touches her husband's organ lead a prayer... it is inconceivable!"
Obviously the sheikh is unaware that married women do not touch their husband's organ. As a matter of fact that's the main reason women get married ... so they don't have to touch, fondle or stroke any part of a man's body. In fact women are done with sex the day after they get married. Obviously the sheikh is enjoying an unusually active sex-life with his wife.
I feel the anger of my fellow fundamentalist brothers. We're not only challenged by an intellectual who knows her Islam but, even worse, we're challenged by a woman. The very fact that a woman is more intelligent, and makes no apologies for it, insults our very existence.
This has nothing to do with Islam; it's about what we've learned from our fathers and grandfathers. This is about money and power -- the very essence of our manhood. This is not about menstrual cycles, stirring desires or fondling organs. It's about fear and insecurity. Nothing is more intimidating to a man than a woman who sees right through him.
Personally, as an Iranian Moslem man, it would be a privilege and honor to stand behind a female imam and pray to my God. I promise I'll never glance at her behind -- unless, of course, God has blessed her with one that is too divine to ignore.
Who knows? Maybe one day women can have several husbands too. Reversal of fortune is entertaining -- don't you think? Maybe we'll see the day when women with their Gucci purses and Prada shoes walk in front and we follow them two steps behind covered in thick dark sheets, pushing strollers and gasping for air. Imagine me and the sheikh and a couple of other fellows being some woman's bitches. Oh, the payback!
About
Siamack Baniameri is the author of The Iranican Dream, (Virtualbookworm.com Publishing, December 2004). Also see Iranican-Dream.com.
This article was first published in iranian.com
The following article discusses the present debate in Pakistan between the two facets of Islam; the extremist/fundamentalist approach advocating return to the seventh century Islam on the one hand and the progressive/moderate one which advocates change and progress within an ethical framework, on the other. To illuminate the debate it focuses on the current controversy that the Mullahs are creating over the inclusion of the Aga Khan University Education Board (AKUEB) among the examining boards for school leaving students.
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/mazdak.htm
The heart of the matter
By Irfan Husain
Ever since 9/11, many in the West see Muslims as being involved in terrorism, and Islam as somehow encouraging violence. Defenders of Islam have constantly and correctly pointed out that their faith is one of peace, tolerance and love.
So a foreigner visiting Pakistan could be excused for asking why these virtues are virtually absent from our society. Why, he could well ask, is the rhetoric of the religious parties so full of hate and venom?
What, for instance, would he make of this recent headline: "NWFP minister threatens to throw people planning girls' marathon into Kabul River"? It seems that Mr Sirajul Haq, senior minister in the NWFP government, wants to drown anybody contemplating an athletic event for women.
When a number of armed men led by an MMA member of parliament attacked a women's 'mini-marathon' event in Gujranwala, the incident made headlines around the world. This only reinforced the image Muslims have acquired in the West.
Photographs of bearded, lathi-wielding zealots are frightening reminders of the growing gap between two world views. For the mullahs, there should be no progress, no scientific enquiry, men should have unkempt beards, and women should be locked securely indoors. In this Talibanesque vision, we should march backwards to the 7th century.
Mercifully, there is a gentler, more tolerant version of Islam practised elsewhere in the Muslim world. Here, progress is seen as something to strive for; women have equal rights; the minorities are protected; and education is not seen as an adjunct of Islamic studies. But in these societies, too, there are limits on the freedom of thought and expression that run counter to the demands of free enquiry and rational thought.
In the modern, secular world view that today shapes the West and other dynamic societies in Asia, there are no eternal truths: everything is questioned, and nothing is beyond criticism.
In this intellectual ferment, theories are advanced and demolished; new ideas come and go; and the frontiers of human knowledge are advanced all the time. There are many religious people in these societies, but their faith does not block progress. Indeed, most developed nations have secularism inscribed as a basic tenet in their constitutions.
A current example of the conflict between extremism and modernism is the unnecessary controversy raised by the clerics about the decision to include the Aga Khan University Education Board (AKUEB) among the examining boards for school leaving students.
Considering that there are a score or so of such bodies, affiliation to the AKUEB is entirely voluntary, and it has no power to change the curriculum, the furore raised by the mullahs is hard to understand.
In a leading Urdu daily, Allama Ayaz Zaheer, the chairman of the Pakistan Madressah Foundation makes this odd accusation, followed by the usual threats: "Very soon, AKUEB is going to be given the charge of madressahs in Pakistan.
We will not accept it... The consequences would be horrible if AKUEB tried to take over our madressahs... We would besiege all Aga Khan Foundation offices and teach the infidels an unforgettable lesson..." Our clerics are fond of declaring their targets non-Muslims while threatening them with violence. They have given themselves the authority to declare who is a believer and who is not.
And while these threats are flying around, what does the government do? Cave in yet again. Just as it meekly gave in to the MMA's demand to include a religion column in the new passports, I expect it will soon withdraw the ordinance it had earlier issued making the AKUEB an examining board.
Actually, this vicious anti-AKUEB campaign makes eminent sense for the mullahs. Ever since Zia and the army virtually handed over public education to the religious parties, they have steadily eroded its quality. The result is before us all to see. Now, a high school certificate is not accepted by any decent college or university unless it holds its own admission test.
The clerics, backed by many education department officials, believe that an independent examining body would insist on higher standards, thereby exposing the shoddy system they have created. These vested interests would be unable to manipulate results for money or for influence, at least for those schools opting to be examined by the AKUEB.
In reality, this debate goes to the very heart of the struggle between extremism and modernity. Mullahs see this as the thin edge of the wedge. If the AKUEB succeeds in raising standards, government boards will be under pressure to emulate it, and just possibly, public education might be improved to acceptable levels.
An example of this knock-on effect exists in the shape of the Aga Khan University hospital that, by offering world class health care, has influenced other private and public hospitals into changing the way they function.
At the core of this struggle lies a deep insecurity in the minds of many clerics. They know in their heart of hearts that they are not really educated in any meaningful sense, whatever the election commission might say. If their ignorant followers acquire a real education, they might well question the authority the mullahs have gained.
Islam recognizes no church, no over lordship of any religious leader or party. Each believer prays directly to God without any intermediary. So in a way, the authority of our clergy rests on very shaky foundations.
Returning to where we started, why is the language of our religious parties so filled with hate and violence? Where are the love and peace the Holy Book teaches us? Why cannot Pakistani clerics engage in calm and constructive debate? Why must they brandish arms and utter death threats all the time? Is it because they lack the tools of civilized discourse?
Uneducated in everything, their only intellectual weapon is a poorly understood and ill-digested rote learning of the scriptures. With this, they seek to browbeat the rest of us into silence. Unable to contribute anything to the great deeds and thoughts of our times, they want to drag us all back to the mediaeval era. And since they have no answer to real problems of the day, they are forever creating unnecessary controversies in an unending effort to distract the poor and the ignorant from demanding a better life.
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/mazdak.htm
The heart of the matter
By Irfan Husain
Ever since 9/11, many in the West see Muslims as being involved in terrorism, and Islam as somehow encouraging violence. Defenders of Islam have constantly and correctly pointed out that their faith is one of peace, tolerance and love.
So a foreigner visiting Pakistan could be excused for asking why these virtues are virtually absent from our society. Why, he could well ask, is the rhetoric of the religious parties so full of hate and venom?
What, for instance, would he make of this recent headline: "NWFP minister threatens to throw people planning girls' marathon into Kabul River"? It seems that Mr Sirajul Haq, senior minister in the NWFP government, wants to drown anybody contemplating an athletic event for women.
When a number of armed men led by an MMA member of parliament attacked a women's 'mini-marathon' event in Gujranwala, the incident made headlines around the world. This only reinforced the image Muslims have acquired in the West.
Photographs of bearded, lathi-wielding zealots are frightening reminders of the growing gap between two world views. For the mullahs, there should be no progress, no scientific enquiry, men should have unkempt beards, and women should be locked securely indoors. In this Talibanesque vision, we should march backwards to the 7th century.
Mercifully, there is a gentler, more tolerant version of Islam practised elsewhere in the Muslim world. Here, progress is seen as something to strive for; women have equal rights; the minorities are protected; and education is not seen as an adjunct of Islamic studies. But in these societies, too, there are limits on the freedom of thought and expression that run counter to the demands of free enquiry and rational thought.
In the modern, secular world view that today shapes the West and other dynamic societies in Asia, there are no eternal truths: everything is questioned, and nothing is beyond criticism.
In this intellectual ferment, theories are advanced and demolished; new ideas come and go; and the frontiers of human knowledge are advanced all the time. There are many religious people in these societies, but their faith does not block progress. Indeed, most developed nations have secularism inscribed as a basic tenet in their constitutions.
A current example of the conflict between extremism and modernism is the unnecessary controversy raised by the clerics about the decision to include the Aga Khan University Education Board (AKUEB) among the examining boards for school leaving students.
Considering that there are a score or so of such bodies, affiliation to the AKUEB is entirely voluntary, and it has no power to change the curriculum, the furore raised by the mullahs is hard to understand.
In a leading Urdu daily, Allama Ayaz Zaheer, the chairman of the Pakistan Madressah Foundation makes this odd accusation, followed by the usual threats: "Very soon, AKUEB is going to be given the charge of madressahs in Pakistan.
We will not accept it... The consequences would be horrible if AKUEB tried to take over our madressahs... We would besiege all Aga Khan Foundation offices and teach the infidels an unforgettable lesson..." Our clerics are fond of declaring their targets non-Muslims while threatening them with violence. They have given themselves the authority to declare who is a believer and who is not.
And while these threats are flying around, what does the government do? Cave in yet again. Just as it meekly gave in to the MMA's demand to include a religion column in the new passports, I expect it will soon withdraw the ordinance it had earlier issued making the AKUEB an examining board.
Actually, this vicious anti-AKUEB campaign makes eminent sense for the mullahs. Ever since Zia and the army virtually handed over public education to the religious parties, they have steadily eroded its quality. The result is before us all to see. Now, a high school certificate is not accepted by any decent college or university unless it holds its own admission test.
The clerics, backed by many education department officials, believe that an independent examining body would insist on higher standards, thereby exposing the shoddy system they have created. These vested interests would be unable to manipulate results for money or for influence, at least for those schools opting to be examined by the AKUEB.
In reality, this debate goes to the very heart of the struggle between extremism and modernity. Mullahs see this as the thin edge of the wedge. If the AKUEB succeeds in raising standards, government boards will be under pressure to emulate it, and just possibly, public education might be improved to acceptable levels.
An example of this knock-on effect exists in the shape of the Aga Khan University hospital that, by offering world class health care, has influenced other private and public hospitals into changing the way they function.
At the core of this struggle lies a deep insecurity in the minds of many clerics. They know in their heart of hearts that they are not really educated in any meaningful sense, whatever the election commission might say. If their ignorant followers acquire a real education, they might well question the authority the mullahs have gained.
Islam recognizes no church, no over lordship of any religious leader or party. Each believer prays directly to God without any intermediary. So in a way, the authority of our clergy rests on very shaky foundations.
Returning to where we started, why is the language of our religious parties so filled with hate and violence? Where are the love and peace the Holy Book teaches us? Why cannot Pakistani clerics engage in calm and constructive debate? Why must they brandish arms and utter death threats all the time? Is it because they lack the tools of civilized discourse?
Uneducated in everything, their only intellectual weapon is a poorly understood and ill-digested rote learning of the scriptures. With this, they seek to browbeat the rest of us into silence. Unable to contribute anything to the great deeds and thoughts of our times, they want to drag us all back to the mediaeval era. And since they have no answer to real problems of the day, they are forever creating unnecessary controversies in an unending effort to distract the poor and the ignorant from demanding a better life.
The following article is the aftermath of the controversy surrounding Dr. Amina Wadud, a Muslim woman leading prayer in the US. It examines the consequences of various points of view on this issue. What is interesting is that not all Muslims think alike on this issue - a need to exercise patience and tolerance and not to judge others.
A Midwestern Muslim -- Hesham A. Hassaballa
Is She An Apostate?
A woman leads Islamic prayer, and detractors go
ballistic. Why can't we disagree without being
violently disagreeable?
On March 18, Dr. Amina Wadud--a professor at Virginia
Commonwealth University--led a historic Friday prayer,
or jumu'a, service in New York City. Traditionally,
Muslim scholars have said and written that Muslim
women are not allowed to lead other men in formal
prayer, on Friday or otherwise. Wadud's belief to the
contrary challenges centuries of Muslim thought on
this issue; naturally, the event has caused an
enormous amount of controversy.
The event drew a number of protesters. They held signs
saying, "Mixed-Gender Prayers Today, Hellfire
Tomorrow" and "May Allah's curse be upon Ameena
Wadoud." Many have called Wadud an "apostate" for
leading a mixed-gender Friday prayer. Brooklyn native
Mohammed Nussrah, as quoted by the Associated Press,
said, "If this was an Islamic state, this woman would
be hanged." According to someone who attended the
event, a bearded man was dragged out of the venue
yelling "Allahu Akbar," or "God is the Greatest."
The prayer was held at the Cathedral of St. John the
Divine, an Episcopal church in Manhattan. Yet, that
was not the original choice: the Sudaram Tagore
Gallery in New York. After a bomb threat was received,
the venue was dropped out of concern for the safety of
the participants, and organizers did not announce the
new location. Three mosques refused to host the event,
although no reason was reported.
My purpose in speaking about this issue is not to
debate the merit of Wadud's argument about women
leading mixed gender prayer. I'll leave that to the
scholars of our community. What motivates me to write
is the reaction by some in the Muslim community to
this event.
Wadud is an "apostate"? God's curse should be upon
those who organized the event? Hellfire is in store
for those who attended the mixed-gender Friday prayer?
A bomb threat to the gallery? Why? Because Wadud
believes that women are allowed to lead a mixed-gender
prayer? One of the prayer service's chief sponsors,
MuslimWakeup.com, was repeatedly hacked in the days
and weeks before the event. On one of these occasions,
the hackers re-directed the site to one entitled,
"Murtad Wakeup." Murtad is the Arabic term for
"apostate."
This angers me very deeply. Why can't these detractors
disagree without being violently disagreeable?
First of all, the Qur'an clearly states that Muslims
should not accuse each other of not being Muslim.
Verse 4:94 says, "O ye who believe! When ye go abroad
in the cause of God, investigate carefully, and say
not to any one who offers you a salutation of peace:
'Thou art not a believer!' Coveting the perishable
goods of this life: with God are profits and spoils
abundant. Even thus were ye yourselves before, till
God conferred on you His favours: Therefore carefully
investigate. For God is well aware of all that ye do"
(4:94).
This verse was revealed after companions of the
Prophet killed two people along a road--even though
they greeted them with "salam," indicating they were
fellow Muslims--and took their possessions, thinking
they were members of a hostile pagan tribe. God
rebuked them, saying "you used to be barbarians like
this before I blessed you with Islam." Now, this does
not mean that it is OK to kill non-Muslims (just in
case you were thinking that). It just means that
Muslims should not be in the business of questioning
the faith of their brothers and sisters in faith.
The Qur'an also said: "...do not defame or be
sarcastic to each other, and do not call each other by
(offensive) nicknames: Ill-seeming is a name connoting
wickedness, (to be used of one) after he has believed:
And those who do not desist are (indeed) doing wrong"
(49:11).
I don't have a problem with those who disagreed with
the event taking place protesting and voicing their
disagreement. That is their right. I do have a
problem, however, with their cursing Wadud and those
who supported her stance and condemning them to Hell.
They have no right to say that.
This situation frustrates me enormously. Why can't we
simply disagree? Since the event was announced, I have
watched a vigorous debate take place about female
leadership in prayer--and it was refreshing.
Refreshing because age old traditions are being
questioned, and this is healthy for the Muslim
community, even if the age old traditions end up
surviving a stern re-examination.
It is refreshing also because I learned something new:
there are some Muslim scholars who agree with women
leading the prayer. I never knew that before, and I am
happy to learn something new about my faith. The most
refreshing aspect of the debate, however, is that it
has largely been civil and respectful, becoming of the
community God and His Prophet wanted us to be.
Intimidation, making threats, hurling insults,
invoking the curse of God, and condemning to Hell, on
the other hand, is not becoming of the community God
and His Prophet wanted us to be. It stifles debate; it
hardens hearts; it further divides, and it destroys
the bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood that both God
and His Prophet stressed were paramount.
And it makes the news. Although these tactics of
"defending the faith" are being used by a small
minority of Muslims, the damage has already been done:
all Muslims are made to look like intolerant
barbarians. When will this madness end?
A Midwestern Muslim -- Hesham A. Hassaballa
Is She An Apostate?
A woman leads Islamic prayer, and detractors go
ballistic. Why can't we disagree without being
violently disagreeable?
On March 18, Dr. Amina Wadud--a professor at Virginia
Commonwealth University--led a historic Friday prayer,
or jumu'a, service in New York City. Traditionally,
Muslim scholars have said and written that Muslim
women are not allowed to lead other men in formal
prayer, on Friday or otherwise. Wadud's belief to the
contrary challenges centuries of Muslim thought on
this issue; naturally, the event has caused an
enormous amount of controversy.
The event drew a number of protesters. They held signs
saying, "Mixed-Gender Prayers Today, Hellfire
Tomorrow" and "May Allah's curse be upon Ameena
Wadoud." Many have called Wadud an "apostate" for
leading a mixed-gender Friday prayer. Brooklyn native
Mohammed Nussrah, as quoted by the Associated Press,
said, "If this was an Islamic state, this woman would
be hanged." According to someone who attended the
event, a bearded man was dragged out of the venue
yelling "Allahu Akbar," or "God is the Greatest."
The prayer was held at the Cathedral of St. John the
Divine, an Episcopal church in Manhattan. Yet, that
was not the original choice: the Sudaram Tagore
Gallery in New York. After a bomb threat was received,
the venue was dropped out of concern for the safety of
the participants, and organizers did not announce the
new location. Three mosques refused to host the event,
although no reason was reported.
My purpose in speaking about this issue is not to
debate the merit of Wadud's argument about women
leading mixed gender prayer. I'll leave that to the
scholars of our community. What motivates me to write
is the reaction by some in the Muslim community to
this event.
Wadud is an "apostate"? God's curse should be upon
those who organized the event? Hellfire is in store
for those who attended the mixed-gender Friday prayer?
A bomb threat to the gallery? Why? Because Wadud
believes that women are allowed to lead a mixed-gender
prayer? One of the prayer service's chief sponsors,
MuslimWakeup.com, was repeatedly hacked in the days
and weeks before the event. On one of these occasions,
the hackers re-directed the site to one entitled,
"Murtad Wakeup." Murtad is the Arabic term for
"apostate."
This angers me very deeply. Why can't these detractors
disagree without being violently disagreeable?
First of all, the Qur'an clearly states that Muslims
should not accuse each other of not being Muslim.
Verse 4:94 says, "O ye who believe! When ye go abroad
in the cause of God, investigate carefully, and say
not to any one who offers you a salutation of peace:
'Thou art not a believer!' Coveting the perishable
goods of this life: with God are profits and spoils
abundant. Even thus were ye yourselves before, till
God conferred on you His favours: Therefore carefully
investigate. For God is well aware of all that ye do"
(4:94).
This verse was revealed after companions of the
Prophet killed two people along a road--even though
they greeted them with "salam," indicating they were
fellow Muslims--and took their possessions, thinking
they were members of a hostile pagan tribe. God
rebuked them, saying "you used to be barbarians like
this before I blessed you with Islam." Now, this does
not mean that it is OK to kill non-Muslims (just in
case you were thinking that). It just means that
Muslims should not be in the business of questioning
the faith of their brothers and sisters in faith.
The Qur'an also said: "...do not defame or be
sarcastic to each other, and do not call each other by
(offensive) nicknames: Ill-seeming is a name connoting
wickedness, (to be used of one) after he has believed:
And those who do not desist are (indeed) doing wrong"
(49:11).
I don't have a problem with those who disagreed with
the event taking place protesting and voicing their
disagreement. That is their right. I do have a
problem, however, with their cursing Wadud and those
who supported her stance and condemning them to Hell.
They have no right to say that.
This situation frustrates me enormously. Why can't we
simply disagree? Since the event was announced, I have
watched a vigorous debate take place about female
leadership in prayer--and it was refreshing.
Refreshing because age old traditions are being
questioned, and this is healthy for the Muslim
community, even if the age old traditions end up
surviving a stern re-examination.
It is refreshing also because I learned something new:
there are some Muslim scholars who agree with women
leading the prayer. I never knew that before, and I am
happy to learn something new about my faith. The most
refreshing aspect of the debate, however, is that it
has largely been civil and respectful, becoming of the
community God and His Prophet wanted us to be.
Intimidation, making threats, hurling insults,
invoking the curse of God, and condemning to Hell, on
the other hand, is not becoming of the community God
and His Prophet wanted us to be. It stifles debate; it
hardens hearts; it further divides, and it destroys
the bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood that both God
and His Prophet stressed were paramount.
And it makes the news. Although these tactics of
"defending the faith" are being used by a small
minority of Muslims, the damage has already been done:
all Muslims are made to look like intolerant
barbarians. When will this madness end?
The following is an article expressing another woman's views relating to her personal experience of leading congregational prayer which hitherto has been regarded as Taboo.
From the ritual to the spiritual
RAHEEL RAZA
At the rate poison darts are soaring towards me, one would think I led a chorus line and not an Islamic prayer!
Yes indeed, the fatwas are flying (I already have one from a Saudi network based in the United States, thank you!). The GTA Muslim community, even those who profess to be liberal, are doing what has become the norm — condemning without considering, labelling without listening and judging without justice. Since the Talibanization of Pakistan, I'm well aware of stoning first and debating later.
Let me confess where all this began. About three weeks ago when Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC), asked me if I would lead a mixed-gender group in prayer, I said No! I wasn't ready to be part of a media frenzy.
Tarek and I have agreed to disagree on many points, but we have what I call "a dignity of difference" — a respectful exchange of ideas, which is a characteristic abysmally lacking in some parts of the Muslim community. My husband convinced me that it would be a natural progression from giving sermons in churches, praying in synagogues and temples to lead prayer for my own community.
I checked with a professor of religious studies who was an imam in Toronto. He said categorically that nowhere in the Qur'an does it specify women can't lead prayer. Also, when the Prophet Muhammad preached his message in a male-dominated society, he did not speak out for or against women leading prayer. As a matter of fact, women at that time were entrepreneurs, theologians, mystics and also participated in war. I'm extremely impressed by these female role models.
The three men in my life (two sons and spouse) encouraged me to take this leap of faith — what more could I ask for? I've always believed God created us equal and that spirituality is not dependent on gender.
However, there are many people who are barred from places of worship. Some women have stopped going to the mosque because they are stuck near the bathrooms or kitchen due to their gender.
More important, all worship in Islam begins with a declaration of intent. My intention was not reactionary, not defiant and definitely not a show of militant feminism. It wasn't about a battle between progressive and conservative — it was about sharing some profound thoughts with my fellow Muslims and also to help other women find a safe space to worship.
April 22 was Earth Day, and after moving the venue twice (because so-called liberal and culturally progressive centres refused to have a woman lead prayer), a backyard in Cabbagetown became the sanctuary. A motley crowd of about 40 people from as far as Oakville and Pickering came to join in this historic Friday prayer, among them an imam, women in hijab and diverse Muslims from various backgrounds.
There was no security guard posted at the door to check ID credentials or people's intentions since I don't believe that is our mission in life. I am responsible only for my conscience and answerable only to God. This event also was an attempt to break the domination of a few misguided bigots who try to reduce God to a policeman.
Although physically I led the prayer by standing in front and reading the sermon before the prayer, we all were bound by our united submission to God. I felt we were truly blessed.
Why? Because the brave men and women who chose to stand behind me and pray empowered me with a responsibility that made my own prayer more poignant and meaningful. It allowed me to move away from the ritual to the spiritual and actually hear and understand myself better than I ever have.
At the end of the prayer, some of the non-Muslim observers had tears in their eyes and were touched to the core. Some participants told me they had not prayed in years and were thrilled to come back into the fold.
As for the critics, let me try and understand where their problem lies. Our message was one of tolerance, peace, spiritual equality, compassion and love of Allah and His Prophet. Obviously that is not the message coming from mosques that base their sermons on negating others.
While this service was not the ultimate move for reclaiming our place in Islam, it's a fact that our faith is frozen in time. Dialogue and debate, also known as ijtehad — an important cornerstone of Islam — have been deemed an unnecessary evil and stopped since the 16th century. So the hope is that events like this one will open the doors to that much needed discourse and put us on the path to enlightenment together as men and women in faith.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Conten ... 8350116795
From the ritual to the spiritual
RAHEEL RAZA
At the rate poison darts are soaring towards me, one would think I led a chorus line and not an Islamic prayer!
Yes indeed, the fatwas are flying (I already have one from a Saudi network based in the United States, thank you!). The GTA Muslim community, even those who profess to be liberal, are doing what has become the norm — condemning without considering, labelling without listening and judging without justice. Since the Talibanization of Pakistan, I'm well aware of stoning first and debating later.
Let me confess where all this began. About three weeks ago when Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC), asked me if I would lead a mixed-gender group in prayer, I said No! I wasn't ready to be part of a media frenzy.
Tarek and I have agreed to disagree on many points, but we have what I call "a dignity of difference" — a respectful exchange of ideas, which is a characteristic abysmally lacking in some parts of the Muslim community. My husband convinced me that it would be a natural progression from giving sermons in churches, praying in synagogues and temples to lead prayer for my own community.
I checked with a professor of religious studies who was an imam in Toronto. He said categorically that nowhere in the Qur'an does it specify women can't lead prayer. Also, when the Prophet Muhammad preached his message in a male-dominated society, he did not speak out for or against women leading prayer. As a matter of fact, women at that time were entrepreneurs, theologians, mystics and also participated in war. I'm extremely impressed by these female role models.
The three men in my life (two sons and spouse) encouraged me to take this leap of faith — what more could I ask for? I've always believed God created us equal and that spirituality is not dependent on gender.
However, there are many people who are barred from places of worship. Some women have stopped going to the mosque because they are stuck near the bathrooms or kitchen due to their gender.
More important, all worship in Islam begins with a declaration of intent. My intention was not reactionary, not defiant and definitely not a show of militant feminism. It wasn't about a battle between progressive and conservative — it was about sharing some profound thoughts with my fellow Muslims and also to help other women find a safe space to worship.
April 22 was Earth Day, and after moving the venue twice (because so-called liberal and culturally progressive centres refused to have a woman lead prayer), a backyard in Cabbagetown became the sanctuary. A motley crowd of about 40 people from as far as Oakville and Pickering came to join in this historic Friday prayer, among them an imam, women in hijab and diverse Muslims from various backgrounds.
There was no security guard posted at the door to check ID credentials or people's intentions since I don't believe that is our mission in life. I am responsible only for my conscience and answerable only to God. This event also was an attempt to break the domination of a few misguided bigots who try to reduce God to a policeman.
Although physically I led the prayer by standing in front and reading the sermon before the prayer, we all were bound by our united submission to God. I felt we were truly blessed.
Why? Because the brave men and women who chose to stand behind me and pray empowered me with a responsibility that made my own prayer more poignant and meaningful. It allowed me to move away from the ritual to the spiritual and actually hear and understand myself better than I ever have.
At the end of the prayer, some of the non-Muslim observers had tears in their eyes and were touched to the core. Some participants told me they had not prayed in years and were thrilled to come back into the fold.
As for the critics, let me try and understand where their problem lies. Our message was one of tolerance, peace, spiritual equality, compassion and love of Allah and His Prophet. Obviously that is not the message coming from mosques that base their sermons on negating others.
While this service was not the ultimate move for reclaiming our place in Islam, it's a fact that our faith is frozen in time. Dialogue and debate, also known as ijtehad — an important cornerstone of Islam — have been deemed an unnecessary evil and stopped since the 16th century. So the hope is that events like this one will open the doors to that much needed discourse and put us on the path to enlightenment together as men and women in faith.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Conten ... 8350116795
The following article discusses the increasing role of Muslim women in society in Turkey. More women are getting educated and demanding equitable opportunities in relation to men. This presents an interesting prospect in regard to the many facets of Islam as presently practiced by the mainstream Sunnis which require rethinking or reinterpretation. Traditionally women have not been involved in these issues. Perhaps their involvement will force new perspective and change and set an example to other Muslim countries.
from the April 27, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0427/p04s01-woeu.html
In Turkey, Muslim women gain expanded religious authority
A new class of educated women are demanding more rights. Some now monitor the work of imams in local mosques.
By Yigal Schleifer | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
ISTANBUL - Covered in a pink and gray head scarf that tightly frames her round face, and adorned in a long, dark-blue overcoat, Zuleyha Seker hardly seems like a rebel. But as one of 400 women preachers, known as vaizes, currently working in several of Turkey's state-run mosques, Ms. Seker is making waves.
"The vaizes like me are seen as revolutionaries in religious circles - we are always pushing for change," she says with a gentle smile.
Indeed, women have brought significant change to Turkey's Muslim order in recent years. Two years ago, women were appointed for the first time to lead groups of Turks making the pilgrimage to Mecca. And last year, Diyanet, a government body that oversees the country's mosques and trains religious leaders, added 150 women preachers across Turkey.
Now, Diyanet is selecting a group of women who will serve as deputies to muftis, or expounders of religious law. From this post, they'll monitor the work being done by imams in local mosques, particularly as it relates to women.
While these changes come in response to what Diyanet officials describe as a growing demand from women for more and better religious education, academics and Islamic intellectuals say these developments are also being forced by the rise of a new class of educated religious women who are demanding more rights within the country's Islamic milieu.
"Now, women are more educated, they participate more in social life, and they are mixing more with men, so they are demand- ing more," says Nevin Meric, a women's education expert at the Istanbul mufti's office. "Today they are aware of their rights and they are learning by reading and asking," she says.
Buket Turkmen, a sociologist at Istanbul's Galatasaray University who has studied the role of women in Turkish Islam, says that for many women who come from traditional homes where they would normally be limited in what they are allowed to do, religious education becomes a path to a certain kind of independence.
"It's very paradoxical, but by choosing Islam, they can gain their individuality and their emancipation. In this context, Islam means modernization," Ms. Turkmen says.
It's a path that more women seem to be exploring. In Istanbul, for example, the mufti's office has 583 women teaching courses on the Koran to women across the city. Women now also make up the majority of students in the theology departments of several Turkish universities.
Mehmet Gormez, Diyanet's deputy head, says the growing demand from women has forced Turkey's religious institutions to act. "In Islamic doctrine, men and women are equal. This should also be applied in practice," Mr. Gormez adds.
The changes begun by Diyanet appear to put Turkey in a leading position within the Islamic world on women's issues. "Turkey has been more open to [theological] change," says Yurdegul Mehmetoglu, a vice dean in the theology faculty at Istanbul's Marmara University.
While there are signs of loosening in Turkey, Muslim orthodoxy remains clear that women cannot lead prayers, particularly in the Arab Muslim heartland.
When Amina Wadud, an American Muslim and professor, announced that she would lead Friday prayers at an annex of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City last month, condemnation rang from orthodox circles. Sunni preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Qatar issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, saying "that leadership in prayer in Islam is reserved for men only," and warning that a women leading prayers might arouse men.
In early Islam, there were a number of female religious scholars. But women were eventually excluded from taking part in theological debates.
Gormez says Diyanet is hoping the vaizes and deputy muftis will act as advocates for women's issues in mosques, making them friendlier environments for other women.
As one of 18 vaizes in Istanbul, Seker, a university graduate in theology, doesn't actually lead prayers or give sermons in mosques. Instead, she helps organize seminars and teaches religious classes for women.
"In the past, [women] believed anything told to them by their older brother, father, or teacher. But as they are becoming more educated, they are coming up with more questions," she says. "We need new answers for new questions."
On a recent afternoon, though, Seker deals with the timeworn topics of tradition and prayer. Teaching in a community center in an Istanbul neighborhood, Seker tells the seven head-scarfed women that not all of the traditions they have been taught are necessarily part of Islam.
She brings up so-called honor killings - the murder of young women considered to have damaged a family's honor - that still take place in Turkey.
"There is no such thing in Islam, and to kill someone is considered to be the biggest sin," she tells the women, who sit motionless throughout her talk. She also encourages them to read the Koran more.
Seker acknowledges that her work might not sit well with the husbands of the women she teaches. "They feel like their throne is being shaken," she says.
• Staff writer Dan Murphy contributed to this report from Cairo.
Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links
from the April 27, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0427/p04s01-woeu.html
In Turkey, Muslim women gain expanded religious authority
A new class of educated women are demanding more rights. Some now monitor the work of imams in local mosques.
By Yigal Schleifer | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
ISTANBUL - Covered in a pink and gray head scarf that tightly frames her round face, and adorned in a long, dark-blue overcoat, Zuleyha Seker hardly seems like a rebel. But as one of 400 women preachers, known as vaizes, currently working in several of Turkey's state-run mosques, Ms. Seker is making waves.
"The vaizes like me are seen as revolutionaries in religious circles - we are always pushing for change," she says with a gentle smile.
Indeed, women have brought significant change to Turkey's Muslim order in recent years. Two years ago, women were appointed for the first time to lead groups of Turks making the pilgrimage to Mecca. And last year, Diyanet, a government body that oversees the country's mosques and trains religious leaders, added 150 women preachers across Turkey.
Now, Diyanet is selecting a group of women who will serve as deputies to muftis, or expounders of religious law. From this post, they'll monitor the work being done by imams in local mosques, particularly as it relates to women.
While these changes come in response to what Diyanet officials describe as a growing demand from women for more and better religious education, academics and Islamic intellectuals say these developments are also being forced by the rise of a new class of educated religious women who are demanding more rights within the country's Islamic milieu.
"Now, women are more educated, they participate more in social life, and they are mixing more with men, so they are demand- ing more," says Nevin Meric, a women's education expert at the Istanbul mufti's office. "Today they are aware of their rights and they are learning by reading and asking," she says.
Buket Turkmen, a sociologist at Istanbul's Galatasaray University who has studied the role of women in Turkish Islam, says that for many women who come from traditional homes where they would normally be limited in what they are allowed to do, religious education becomes a path to a certain kind of independence.
"It's very paradoxical, but by choosing Islam, they can gain their individuality and their emancipation. In this context, Islam means modernization," Ms. Turkmen says.
It's a path that more women seem to be exploring. In Istanbul, for example, the mufti's office has 583 women teaching courses on the Koran to women across the city. Women now also make up the majority of students in the theology departments of several Turkish universities.
Mehmet Gormez, Diyanet's deputy head, says the growing demand from women has forced Turkey's religious institutions to act. "In Islamic doctrine, men and women are equal. This should also be applied in practice," Mr. Gormez adds.
The changes begun by Diyanet appear to put Turkey in a leading position within the Islamic world on women's issues. "Turkey has been more open to [theological] change," says Yurdegul Mehmetoglu, a vice dean in the theology faculty at Istanbul's Marmara University.
While there are signs of loosening in Turkey, Muslim orthodoxy remains clear that women cannot lead prayers, particularly in the Arab Muslim heartland.
When Amina Wadud, an American Muslim and professor, announced that she would lead Friday prayers at an annex of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City last month, condemnation rang from orthodox circles. Sunni preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Qatar issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, saying "that leadership in prayer in Islam is reserved for men only," and warning that a women leading prayers might arouse men.
In early Islam, there were a number of female religious scholars. But women were eventually excluded from taking part in theological debates.
Gormez says Diyanet is hoping the vaizes and deputy muftis will act as advocates for women's issues in mosques, making them friendlier environments for other women.
As one of 18 vaizes in Istanbul, Seker, a university graduate in theology, doesn't actually lead prayers or give sermons in mosques. Instead, she helps organize seminars and teaches religious classes for women.
"In the past, [women] believed anything told to them by their older brother, father, or teacher. But as they are becoming more educated, they are coming up with more questions," she says. "We need new answers for new questions."
On a recent afternoon, though, Seker deals with the timeworn topics of tradition and prayer. Teaching in a community center in an Istanbul neighborhood, Seker tells the seven head-scarfed women that not all of the traditions they have been taught are necessarily part of Islam.
She brings up so-called honor killings - the murder of young women considered to have damaged a family's honor - that still take place in Turkey.
"There is no such thing in Islam, and to kill someone is considered to be the biggest sin," she tells the women, who sit motionless throughout her talk. She also encourages them to read the Koran more.
Seker acknowledges that her work might not sit well with the husbands of the women she teaches. "They feel like their throne is being shaken," she says.
• Staff writer Dan Murphy contributed to this report from Cairo.
Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links
The following article explores the various dimensions of Hijab in it's social, cultural, political context and then goes on to discuss the real Hijab or Hijab in it's broadest sense which the author calls the epistemological Hijab which is isolation of women from any social, cultural and religious apects of life. The changes in Turkey that were alluded to in the previous post, perhaps can be called the removal of this Hijab.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL HIJAB by M. A. Muqtedar Khan
The issue of "Hijab", its various implications and the politics surrounding it, has become a globally polarizing issue. Whether in France or in Turkey, between Muslims and others and between liberal Muslims and traditional Muslims, the Hijab has become a site for the cultural struggle between Islam and modernity and between contemporary and traditional interpretations of Islam.
The Hijab is to some a symbol of Islam's ascendance in the world, while for others it is a reminder of the intransigent Muslim resistance to things that first emerge in the West - modernity, secularism, feminism, liberalism and globalism. For some Muslims in France, it is a symbol of their resistance to French cultural occupation over Arabs and Muslims in France. For Islamists in Turkey, it is an important means to preserving the Islamic heritage of Turkey from secular fundamentalism. For non-Muslim observers, it is often an introduction to an Islam that has misogynistic proclivities.
No matter what the perspective one employs, the fact remains that the Hijab is an instrument of segregation and containment.
The Hijab in its philosophical sense marks the Muslim woman for separation and for "different" treatment in all aspects of life; the most egregious being the moral differentiation it engenders. Muslims who claim that Hijab is an instrument that compels society to treat women in a special, even exalted way (in terms of security and respect) do not work to ensure that the society has special affirmative laws in place that will guarantee equal outcomes for women, since the Hijab ultimately undermines equal opportunity.
But the sartorial Hijab, and its attendant social practices of segregation, disenfranchisement and marginalization of women, is but a symptom of a more profound and civilizationally debilitating form of Hijab that is practiced by contemporary Muslim society. What is significant and must be confronted with vigor is the Epistemological Hijab that "good" Muslims insist on imposing on "good" Muslim women. The Epistemological Hijab is the traditional barrier that exists between women and Islamic sources. Women have played a marginal role in the interpretation of Islam and articulation of the laws and rules that are forced upon them. The Epistemological Hijab - the barrier between women and Islamic sources - has fundamentally rendered the articulation and enforcement of Islamic laws undemocratic. This undemocratic tradition privileges men and exploits women. Its reconstitution is important and more so now than before.
In the postcolonial era, a strange paradox has captivated the global Muslim community. The nearly hundred-year-old Islamic revivalist movement that is singularly responsible for the global significance of Islam, has been driven by lay intellectuals. Consider the following key figures of Islamic revival; Jamaluddin Afghani, Hassan Al Banna, Syed Qutb, Ali Shariata, Muhammad Iqbal, Abul A'la Maududi, Khurshid Ahmed, Malik Bin Nabi, Rashid Ghannoushi were all lay intellectuals, many educated in the West. Many of them were of course exposed to traditional Islamic sciences, but none of them was an Islamic jurist.
But for some inexplicable reason, the ascendant Islam today is highly legalistic and Shariah-obsessed. Islam in the mind of many Muslims is nothing but Shariah - what it really means in operational terms is that the beauty, the virtues and the meaning of Islam is confined to the rather mundane domain of medieval Islamic legalist discourse - Fiqh - which lacks the intellectual depth of Falsafa (Islamic philosophy), the aesthetics and the mystery of Kalam (Islamic theology) and the spirituality and charisma of Tasawwuf (Islamic mysticism).
We live today in an era of Islamic banking - Shariah-compliant transactions - and Halal hamburgers; we ponder over the legality of eating marshmellows, and deliberate over the propriety of women shaking hands with men. Mind you, all serious legal matters, such as for example state-military relations, international transactions, have very little input from Islam or Muslim jurists, since the Muslim world merely follows the conventions of Western/international laws. Islamic legalism is itself confined primarily to issues of personal matters only.
This peculiar legalism, which has colonized Islam and the Muslim conscience, is a product of the vulnerabilities of the Muslim man who has tried to cope with his own insecurities in a world dominated by other men. Muslim men today are not sovereign beings. Other men dominate their world. The only area where they exercise absolute sovereignty is over the tiny domain called Islamic law. Here they realize their manhood. They glorify themselves, grant themselves exotic privileges and assure themselves of their power by exercising it on their women. This exercise of power is realized by complete exclusion of women from participating in the process of deriving and interpreting Islamic rulings from the sources.
There is perhaps no other legal tradition extant today where one has no say in the articulation of laws that govern one's entire life. Muslim women have very little if no role in the process of developing Islamic Fiqh. Even historically, men and men alone have developed all the Madhahib - legal schools, and legal principles, even those that deal with the most private aspects of female existence. Thus Islamic legalism has descended as a shroud on the Muslim women, covering her very essence from the world, disconnecting her from her own reality, depriving her of the right to understand and interpret her own being and disabling her from being able to navigate her own life. Islamic legalism fundamentality veils the Muslim woman's consciousness. Frankly it dehumanizes women.
Muslims scholars and philosophers of every tradition maintain that the essence of humanity is either our moral compass or our reason or both. By preventing Muslim women from exercising their reason to derive the moral laws by which they live, Islamic legalism denies them the most human of all exercises using our reason to become capable of making moral judgments. In a way Islamic legalism steals women's God given humanity from them.
Islamists are fond of repeating that in Islam, God is sovereign since He and He alone has the right to make laws. Unfortunately, this is a very superficial understanding of Islam and fails to recognize the distinction between revealed principles (Wahy), human product (Fiqh). They obfuscate the distinctions between the two and call it law (Shariah). By insisting that the opinions and arguments of long dead medieval jurists are actually divine law, Islamists make jurists the God of Muslim women and introduce a new and oppressive partition/veil between the women and her real God. In some cultures this divine status of men over women is recognized since men are sometimes referred to as the "majazi khuda" (manifest God) of women.
If Muslim women wish to regain their humanity and gain an equal moral status with men, which is not denied to them in principle but only in practice [within Islamic society], they must tear the partition that separates them from their right to understand and interpret Islamic sources and act upon their own understanding.
They must tear asunder this Epistemological Hijab imposed by Islamic legalism that stands between them and their God. Until then all discussions about the cultural and physical will remain superficial and contained within the context of the masculine logic that currently exercises such supreme sovereignty over Islamic principles and its derivative laws.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL HIJAB by M. A. Muqtedar Khan
The issue of "Hijab", its various implications and the politics surrounding it, has become a globally polarizing issue. Whether in France or in Turkey, between Muslims and others and between liberal Muslims and traditional Muslims, the Hijab has become a site for the cultural struggle between Islam and modernity and between contemporary and traditional interpretations of Islam.
The Hijab is to some a symbol of Islam's ascendance in the world, while for others it is a reminder of the intransigent Muslim resistance to things that first emerge in the West - modernity, secularism, feminism, liberalism and globalism. For some Muslims in France, it is a symbol of their resistance to French cultural occupation over Arabs and Muslims in France. For Islamists in Turkey, it is an important means to preserving the Islamic heritage of Turkey from secular fundamentalism. For non-Muslim observers, it is often an introduction to an Islam that has misogynistic proclivities.
No matter what the perspective one employs, the fact remains that the Hijab is an instrument of segregation and containment.
The Hijab in its philosophical sense marks the Muslim woman for separation and for "different" treatment in all aspects of life; the most egregious being the moral differentiation it engenders. Muslims who claim that Hijab is an instrument that compels society to treat women in a special, even exalted way (in terms of security and respect) do not work to ensure that the society has special affirmative laws in place that will guarantee equal outcomes for women, since the Hijab ultimately undermines equal opportunity.
But the sartorial Hijab, and its attendant social practices of segregation, disenfranchisement and marginalization of women, is but a symptom of a more profound and civilizationally debilitating form of Hijab that is practiced by contemporary Muslim society. What is significant and must be confronted with vigor is the Epistemological Hijab that "good" Muslims insist on imposing on "good" Muslim women. The Epistemological Hijab is the traditional barrier that exists between women and Islamic sources. Women have played a marginal role in the interpretation of Islam and articulation of the laws and rules that are forced upon them. The Epistemological Hijab - the barrier between women and Islamic sources - has fundamentally rendered the articulation and enforcement of Islamic laws undemocratic. This undemocratic tradition privileges men and exploits women. Its reconstitution is important and more so now than before.
In the postcolonial era, a strange paradox has captivated the global Muslim community. The nearly hundred-year-old Islamic revivalist movement that is singularly responsible for the global significance of Islam, has been driven by lay intellectuals. Consider the following key figures of Islamic revival; Jamaluddin Afghani, Hassan Al Banna, Syed Qutb, Ali Shariata, Muhammad Iqbal, Abul A'la Maududi, Khurshid Ahmed, Malik Bin Nabi, Rashid Ghannoushi were all lay intellectuals, many educated in the West. Many of them were of course exposed to traditional Islamic sciences, but none of them was an Islamic jurist.
But for some inexplicable reason, the ascendant Islam today is highly legalistic and Shariah-obsessed. Islam in the mind of many Muslims is nothing but Shariah - what it really means in operational terms is that the beauty, the virtues and the meaning of Islam is confined to the rather mundane domain of medieval Islamic legalist discourse - Fiqh - which lacks the intellectual depth of Falsafa (Islamic philosophy), the aesthetics and the mystery of Kalam (Islamic theology) and the spirituality and charisma of Tasawwuf (Islamic mysticism).
We live today in an era of Islamic banking - Shariah-compliant transactions - and Halal hamburgers; we ponder over the legality of eating marshmellows, and deliberate over the propriety of women shaking hands with men. Mind you, all serious legal matters, such as for example state-military relations, international transactions, have very little input from Islam or Muslim jurists, since the Muslim world merely follows the conventions of Western/international laws. Islamic legalism is itself confined primarily to issues of personal matters only.
This peculiar legalism, which has colonized Islam and the Muslim conscience, is a product of the vulnerabilities of the Muslim man who has tried to cope with his own insecurities in a world dominated by other men. Muslim men today are not sovereign beings. Other men dominate their world. The only area where they exercise absolute sovereignty is over the tiny domain called Islamic law. Here they realize their manhood. They glorify themselves, grant themselves exotic privileges and assure themselves of their power by exercising it on their women. This exercise of power is realized by complete exclusion of women from participating in the process of deriving and interpreting Islamic rulings from the sources.
There is perhaps no other legal tradition extant today where one has no say in the articulation of laws that govern one's entire life. Muslim women have very little if no role in the process of developing Islamic Fiqh. Even historically, men and men alone have developed all the Madhahib - legal schools, and legal principles, even those that deal with the most private aspects of female existence. Thus Islamic legalism has descended as a shroud on the Muslim women, covering her very essence from the world, disconnecting her from her own reality, depriving her of the right to understand and interpret her own being and disabling her from being able to navigate her own life. Islamic legalism fundamentality veils the Muslim woman's consciousness. Frankly it dehumanizes women.
Muslims scholars and philosophers of every tradition maintain that the essence of humanity is either our moral compass or our reason or both. By preventing Muslim women from exercising their reason to derive the moral laws by which they live, Islamic legalism denies them the most human of all exercises using our reason to become capable of making moral judgments. In a way Islamic legalism steals women's God given humanity from them.
Islamists are fond of repeating that in Islam, God is sovereign since He and He alone has the right to make laws. Unfortunately, this is a very superficial understanding of Islam and fails to recognize the distinction between revealed principles (Wahy), human product (Fiqh). They obfuscate the distinctions between the two and call it law (Shariah). By insisting that the opinions and arguments of long dead medieval jurists are actually divine law, Islamists make jurists the God of Muslim women and introduce a new and oppressive partition/veil between the women and her real God. In some cultures this divine status of men over women is recognized since men are sometimes referred to as the "majazi khuda" (manifest God) of women.
If Muslim women wish to regain their humanity and gain an equal moral status with men, which is not denied to them in principle but only in practice [within Islamic society], they must tear the partition that separates them from their right to understand and interpret Islamic sources and act upon their own understanding.
They must tear asunder this Epistemological Hijab imposed by Islamic legalism that stands between them and their God. Until then all discussions about the cultural and physical will remain superficial and contained within the context of the masculine logic that currently exercises such supreme sovereignty over Islamic principles and its derivative laws.
In the following article, the author discusses the issues arising from the recent report in the Newsweek magazine on the disrespect shown to the Quran. While she acknowledges that there were flows and insensitivities on part of the press, she also criticizes Muslims for regarding the Quran as infallible and not questioning it's content. She also asserts that violence is not the appropriate response on the part of Muslims.
COMMENTARY
Do Riots Save Islam's Honor?
By Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is author of "The Trouble With Islam Today," recently published in paperback by St. Martin's Press.
May 17, 2005
So Newsweek has retracted its report about the defiling of Islam's holy book, the Koran, by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.
But it's too late. Muslims everywhere are questioning America's respect for all religions. Journalists are wondering what standards allowed the charge to be printed without proof. Foreign policy analysts are asking how the riots incited by the charge will affect the war on terrorism. Still, at least one more question needs to be asked: Even if the Koran was mistreated, are violent riots justified?
"What do you expect?" my critics will declare. "Abusing the Koran is like abusing basic human rights. If you're a good Muslim, your identity and dignity are bound up in revering the Koran. It's the literal word of God. Unsullied. Untouched. Unedited. Unlike the other holy books."
Sorry. That argument just doesn't wash. One can appreciate the Koran's inherent worth, as I do, while recognizing that it contains ambiguities, inconsistencies, outright contradictions — and the possibility of human editing. This is not simply a reform-minded Muslim speaking. This is Islamic tradition talking.
For centuries, philosophers of Islam have been telling the story of the "Satanic Verses." The Prophet Muhammad accepted them as authentic entries into the Koran. Later, he realized they deify heathen idols rather than God. So he belatedly rejected the verses, blaming them on a trick played by Satan. Which implies that the Prophet edited the Koran.
Let's push this point further. Because pious Muslims emulate Muhammad's life, those who compiled the Koran's verses after his death might have followed his example of editing along the way. The compilers were, after all, only human — as human as Muhammad himself.
Moreover, they collected the Koran's verses from sundry surfaces such as bones, stones and bark. How did the passages get there? According to Islamic lore, the Prophet, an illiterate trader, couldn't personally record them. His companions served as scribes, often writing from memory. Given so much human involvement, isn't it possible that errors infiltrated the "authoritative" Koran?
In asking this question, I'm neither impugning the allegorical wisdom of the Koran nor inviting another fatwa on my life. I'm saying that Muslims have to get comfortable asking such questions — and not merely whispering them — if we're going to avoid a further desecration of human life. Riots in Afghanistan have already resulted in at least 14 deaths. Aid workers have been attacked; their offices burned. How does this benefit the cause of dignity — for anyone?
Many will insist that I'm undermining the dignity of Muslims by challenging a pillar of their identity. By urging my fellow Muslims to consider these questions, I'm showing faith in their capacity to be thoughtful and humane. I'm appealing to their heads rather than only their hearts. Ultimately, I'm fighting not Islam but the routinely low expectations of those who practice it.
Contrast that with the strategy of Imran Khan, the Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician who rallied his countrymen to express rage based on one paragraph in Newsweek. A fierce rival of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, Khan objects to cooperating with the U.S. on security matters. He knew his comments about Newsweek would feed the most reflexive of Muslim impulses: to treat the Koran with uncritical veneration.
Such lazy tactics remind me of those used to drive the Miss World Beauty Pageant out of Nigeria in 2002. That fiasco led to more than 50 deaths. It wasn't the affront of immodestly clad women that sparked the uproar. Rioting began only after a columnist suggested that the Prophet would have gotten a kick out of the pageant and taken its winner as his wife. An imprudent remark, but should it have caused banditry and murder?
When people believe that certain aspects of religion are off-limits to questions, it doesn't take much to incite violence — or to withhold forgiveness. In the Nigerian case, even though the offending newspaper apologized three times, Muslim protesters set its offices ablaze.
As I write, Muslims worldwide are scheduling demonstrations for the end of this month against those who insult Islam. They'll peacefully protest not just the possibility of the Koran's desecration at Guantanamo but the proven torture at Abu Ghraib as well as civil rights violations suffered by ordinary Muslims in the United States. They have every right to condemn these injuries.
Will they also speak out against the bloody, fiery riots that, in the name of honoring Islam, are killing an increasing number of Muslims and non-Muslims?
It's a question worth asking.
COMMENTARY
Do Riots Save Islam's Honor?
By Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is author of "The Trouble With Islam Today," recently published in paperback by St. Martin's Press.
May 17, 2005
So Newsweek has retracted its report about the defiling of Islam's holy book, the Koran, by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.
But it's too late. Muslims everywhere are questioning America's respect for all religions. Journalists are wondering what standards allowed the charge to be printed without proof. Foreign policy analysts are asking how the riots incited by the charge will affect the war on terrorism. Still, at least one more question needs to be asked: Even if the Koran was mistreated, are violent riots justified?
"What do you expect?" my critics will declare. "Abusing the Koran is like abusing basic human rights. If you're a good Muslim, your identity and dignity are bound up in revering the Koran. It's the literal word of God. Unsullied. Untouched. Unedited. Unlike the other holy books."
Sorry. That argument just doesn't wash. One can appreciate the Koran's inherent worth, as I do, while recognizing that it contains ambiguities, inconsistencies, outright contradictions — and the possibility of human editing. This is not simply a reform-minded Muslim speaking. This is Islamic tradition talking.
For centuries, philosophers of Islam have been telling the story of the "Satanic Verses." The Prophet Muhammad accepted them as authentic entries into the Koran. Later, he realized they deify heathen idols rather than God. So he belatedly rejected the verses, blaming them on a trick played by Satan. Which implies that the Prophet edited the Koran.
Let's push this point further. Because pious Muslims emulate Muhammad's life, those who compiled the Koran's verses after his death might have followed his example of editing along the way. The compilers were, after all, only human — as human as Muhammad himself.
Moreover, they collected the Koran's verses from sundry surfaces such as bones, stones and bark. How did the passages get there? According to Islamic lore, the Prophet, an illiterate trader, couldn't personally record them. His companions served as scribes, often writing from memory. Given so much human involvement, isn't it possible that errors infiltrated the "authoritative" Koran?
In asking this question, I'm neither impugning the allegorical wisdom of the Koran nor inviting another fatwa on my life. I'm saying that Muslims have to get comfortable asking such questions — and not merely whispering them — if we're going to avoid a further desecration of human life. Riots in Afghanistan have already resulted in at least 14 deaths. Aid workers have been attacked; their offices burned. How does this benefit the cause of dignity — for anyone?
Many will insist that I'm undermining the dignity of Muslims by challenging a pillar of their identity. By urging my fellow Muslims to consider these questions, I'm showing faith in their capacity to be thoughtful and humane. I'm appealing to their heads rather than only their hearts. Ultimately, I'm fighting not Islam but the routinely low expectations of those who practice it.
Contrast that with the strategy of Imran Khan, the Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician who rallied his countrymen to express rage based on one paragraph in Newsweek. A fierce rival of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, Khan objects to cooperating with the U.S. on security matters. He knew his comments about Newsweek would feed the most reflexive of Muslim impulses: to treat the Koran with uncritical veneration.
Such lazy tactics remind me of those used to drive the Miss World Beauty Pageant out of Nigeria in 2002. That fiasco led to more than 50 deaths. It wasn't the affront of immodestly clad women that sparked the uproar. Rioting began only after a columnist suggested that the Prophet would have gotten a kick out of the pageant and taken its winner as his wife. An imprudent remark, but should it have caused banditry and murder?
When people believe that certain aspects of religion are off-limits to questions, it doesn't take much to incite violence — or to withhold forgiveness. In the Nigerian case, even though the offending newspaper apologized three times, Muslim protesters set its offices ablaze.
As I write, Muslims worldwide are scheduling demonstrations for the end of this month against those who insult Islam. They'll peacefully protest not just the possibility of the Koran's desecration at Guantanamo but the proven torture at Abu Ghraib as well as civil rights violations suffered by ordinary Muslims in the United States. They have every right to condemn these injuries.
Will they also speak out against the bloody, fiery riots that, in the name of honoring Islam, are killing an increasing number of Muslims and non-Muslims?
It's a question worth asking.
-
star_munir
- Posts: 1670
- Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:55 am
- Contact:
The folllowing comment is totally wrong in the above article"For centuries, philosophers of Islam have been telling the story of the "Satanic Verses." The Prophet Muhammad accepted them as authentic entries into the Koran. Later, he realized they deify heathen idols rather than God. So he belatedly rejected the verses, blaming them on a trick played by Satan. Which implies that the Prophet edited the Koran. "
Thanks for pointing this out. We do however believe as per Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah that the Quran has been tampered with and therefore there would be 'Satanic Verses' although not in the manner indicated by the author. It does not change the essence of her argument that the Quran is not exactly the word of God.star_munir wrote:The folllowing comment is totally wrong in the above article"For centuries, philosophers of Islam have been telling the story of the "Satanic Verses." The Prophet Muhammad accepted them as authentic entries into the Koran. Later, he realized they deify heathen idols rather than God. So he belatedly rejected the verses, blaming them on a trick played by Satan. Which implies that the Prophet edited the Koran. "
-
star_munir
- Posts: 1670
- Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:55 am
- Contact:
As per Zee News
Apology over retracted Quran desecration story not enough: Pak
Islamabad, May 17: Pakistan today spurned as "not enough" an apology and retraction by Newsweek of a report alleging desecration of Islam's holy book, the quran, at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the report "insulted the feelings of Muslims...Just an apology is not enough. They should think a 101 times before publishing news that hurt hearts."
His comments came a day after the Foreign Ministry reiterated a demand for a probe into the alleged desecration.
The report triggered riots in Afghanistan and protests in other Muslim countries including Pakistan, a key ally in the US-led war on terrorism.
The US magazine yesterday withdrew its story in its May 9 edition that interrogators at the US prison placed copies of Islam's holy book in washrooms and flushed one book in the toilet to get inmates to talk.
In New Zealand, visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri said Newsweek's retraction of the story "will definitely help" defuse some of the anger in the Muslim world, but "unfortunately some damage has been done."
Qazi Hussain Ahmed, a hardline Pakistani Islamist leader and opposition lawmaker, rejected Newsweek's apology yesterday.
"The objective of the change in their statement is to cool the anger among Muslims of the world," Ahmed said.
He said Islamic groups in Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia, Britain, Turkey and other countries would go ahead with planned rallies on May 27 to protest the alleged desecration.
Bureau Report
Apology over retracted Quran desecration story not enough: Pak
Islamabad, May 17: Pakistan today spurned as "not enough" an apology and retraction by Newsweek of a report alleging desecration of Islam's holy book, the quran, at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the report "insulted the feelings of Muslims...Just an apology is not enough. They should think a 101 times before publishing news that hurt hearts."
His comments came a day after the Foreign Ministry reiterated a demand for a probe into the alleged desecration.
The report triggered riots in Afghanistan and protests in other Muslim countries including Pakistan, a key ally in the US-led war on terrorism.
The US magazine yesterday withdrew its story in its May 9 edition that interrogators at the US prison placed copies of Islam's holy book in washrooms and flushed one book in the toilet to get inmates to talk.
In New Zealand, visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri said Newsweek's retraction of the story "will definitely help" defuse some of the anger in the Muslim world, but "unfortunately some damage has been done."
Qazi Hussain Ahmed, a hardline Pakistani Islamist leader and opposition lawmaker, rejected Newsweek's apology yesterday.
"The objective of the change in their statement is to cool the anger among Muslims of the world," Ahmed said.
He said Islamic groups in Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia, Britain, Turkey and other countries would go ahead with planned rallies on May 27 to protest the alleged desecration.
Bureau Report
-
star_munir
- Posts: 1670
- Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:55 am
- Contact:
It is in Ginan that ,“A peom was composed and propagated entirely by the Lord. It has remained today as Quran.” [Ginan Sarve jeevu.. V#18 Pir Hassan Kabirdin]
Verse 4 Moman Chetamani : “In every Imam it is the same Noor of Ali and the scriptures bear that out of 40 parts of the Quran are a proof of that and verily 30 are in this world.
Verse 16 “The right knowledge has come from Ali and His progeny as is forecast by the Holy Quran and the Holy Quran has come from God Himself and the proof of all that is really here in this satpanth.”
I dont think that is it not appropriate for muslims to condemn the insult made of Quran and just apology is enough for what it was done....Muslims have right to condemn for the insult made of their Holy book and whether Quran is exactly the words of God or there were some changes, this not in any way justify what was done. In words of Guru Nanak,"“ I have read the Bible, Tauret, Zabur all these religious scriptures and have also read the Vedas But in this kaljug if there is any religious book for thorough guidance, it is only Quran.” [Vide Janam Sakhi, Bhai Bala]"
Making arguments is different thing and making fun of the religions you not follow is another thing. Both are different and just sorry is not enough I think for that.
It reminds me a scene from film border. It was shown that there was fire on house of man and he was crying. He was out side his home and there was not any other person in his home but he said that in his home there is Quran. The soldier without taking care of his life ran into his house which was on fire and brought the Quran from it. The man was happy and asked soldier that you are hindu, inspite of that why you ran into the house which was on fire and brought the Quran from it ? The hindu solier replied some thing like that taking care of people of other religions is what my hindu religion teaches me. Now that was example.
In Ginan Anant Akhado Pir Hassan Kabirdin says that hindus worship idols in which there is not lord but on other hand it is also said in same Ginan verse 177 that The Hindus and the Muslims are all the souls of the Lord
do not bring out the doubts(errors)
Verse 4 Moman Chetamani : “In every Imam it is the same Noor of Ali and the scriptures bear that out of 40 parts of the Quran are a proof of that and verily 30 are in this world.
Verse 16 “The right knowledge has come from Ali and His progeny as is forecast by the Holy Quran and the Holy Quran has come from God Himself and the proof of all that is really here in this satpanth.”
I dont think that is it not appropriate for muslims to condemn the insult made of Quran and just apology is enough for what it was done....Muslims have right to condemn for the insult made of their Holy book and whether Quran is exactly the words of God or there were some changes, this not in any way justify what was done. In words of Guru Nanak,"“ I have read the Bible, Tauret, Zabur all these religious scriptures and have also read the Vedas But in this kaljug if there is any religious book for thorough guidance, it is only Quran.” [Vide Janam Sakhi, Bhai Bala]"
Making arguments is different thing and making fun of the religions you not follow is another thing. Both are different and just sorry is not enough I think for that.
It reminds me a scene from film border. It was shown that there was fire on house of man and he was crying. He was out side his home and there was not any other person in his home but he said that in his home there is Quran. The soldier without taking care of his life ran into his house which was on fire and brought the Quran from it. The man was happy and asked soldier that you are hindu, inspite of that why you ran into the house which was on fire and brought the Quran from it ? The hindu solier replied some thing like that taking care of people of other religions is what my hindu religion teaches me. Now that was example.
In Ginan Anant Akhado Pir Hassan Kabirdin says that hindus worship idols in which there is not lord but on other hand it is also said in same Ginan verse 177 that The Hindus and the Muslims are all the souls of the Lord
do not bring out the doubts(errors)
-
star_munir
- Posts: 1670
- Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:55 am
- Contact:
From Zee News
Pak clerics declare suicide attacks 'un-Islamic'
Islamabad, May 18: Muslim clerics in Pakistan yesterday issued a decree declaring as "un-Islamic" suicide attacks in public places in an Islamic country but kept Kashmir out of its purview.
The clerics, who gathered in Lahore, said those who believe that suicide attacks are meant to earn blessings would be considered out of Islam.
However, 58 clerics from different schools of thought, said the decree does not apply to Palestinian and Kashmiri Muslims.
The decree was issued at a press conference by Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, who heads an officials moon sighting body and the Government run federal Press Information Department.
He said murder of a non-Muslim is also prohibited if he comes to a Muslim state with permission as "Islam calls for protection of non-Muslims".
"State terrorism, individual terrorism and groups terrorism, all these should be condemned and there should be explanation of terrorism and liberation movement," he said.
Rehman said attacks on mosques are prohibited in Islam adding such attacks should be condemned at all levels.
He said the decree has been issued in view of the recent bomb blasts, which killed a large number of people at public and places of worship.
"There was a need to issue such decree as there was impression to defame Islam that religious clerics incite Muslims to kill each other," Muneeb ur Rehman said.
Several scholars opposed the decree and described the move as an attempt to please the Government of Pakistan and America.
Bureau Report
Pak clerics declare suicide attacks 'un-Islamic'
Islamabad, May 18: Muslim clerics in Pakistan yesterday issued a decree declaring as "un-Islamic" suicide attacks in public places in an Islamic country but kept Kashmir out of its purview.
The clerics, who gathered in Lahore, said those who believe that suicide attacks are meant to earn blessings would be considered out of Islam.
However, 58 clerics from different schools of thought, said the decree does not apply to Palestinian and Kashmiri Muslims.
The decree was issued at a press conference by Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, who heads an officials moon sighting body and the Government run federal Press Information Department.
He said murder of a non-Muslim is also prohibited if he comes to a Muslim state with permission as "Islam calls for protection of non-Muslims".
"State terrorism, individual terrorism and groups terrorism, all these should be condemned and there should be explanation of terrorism and liberation movement," he said.
Rehman said attacks on mosques are prohibited in Islam adding such attacks should be condemned at all levels.
He said the decree has been issued in view of the recent bomb blasts, which killed a large number of people at public and places of worship.
"There was a need to issue such decree as there was impression to defame Islam that religious clerics incite Muslims to kill each other," Muneeb ur Rehman said.
Several scholars opposed the decree and described the move as an attempt to please the Government of Pakistan and America.
Bureau Report
While Muslims across the world are quick in condemning the Americans for their disrespect for the Quran, they seem to be oblivious to the bigotry and intolerance demonstrated by the Saudis for other faiths and traditions as expressed in the following article.
COMMENTARY
Hypocrisy Most Holy
By ALI AL-AHMED
May 20, 2005
With the revelation that a copy of the Quran may have been desecrated by U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Muslims and their governments -- including that of Saudi Arabia -- reacted angrily. This anger would have been understandable if the U.S. government's adopted policy was to desecrate our Quran. But even before the Newsweek report was discredited, that was never part of the allegations.
As a Muslim, I am able to purchase copies of the Quran in any bookstore in any American city, and study its contents in countless American universities. American museums spend millions to exhibit and celebrate Muslim arts and heritage. On the other hand, my Christian and other non-Muslim brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia -- where I come from -- are not even allowed to own a copy of their holy books. Indeed, the Saudi government desecrates and burns Bibles that its security forces confiscate at immigration points into the kingdom or during raids on Christian expatriates worshiping privately.
Soon after Newsweek published an account, later retracted, of an American soldier flushing a copy of the Quran down the toilet, the Saudi government voiced its strenuous disapproval. More specifically, the Saudi Embassy in Washington expressed "great concern" and urged the U.S. to "conduct a quick investigation."
Although considered as holy in Islam and mentioned in the Quran dozens of times, the Bible is banned in Saudi Arabia. This would seem curious to most people because of the fact that to most Muslims, the Bible is a holy book. But when it comes to Saudi Arabia we are not talking about most Muslims, but a tiny minority of hard-liners who constitute the Wahhabi Sect.
The Bible in Saudi Arabia may get a person killed, arrested, or deported. In September 1993, Sadeq Mallallah, 23, was beheaded in Qateef on a charge of apostasy for owning a Bible. The State Department's annual human rights reports detail the arrest and deportation of many Christian worshipers every year. Just days before Crown Prince Abdullah met President Bush last month, two Christian gatherings were stormed in Riyadh. Bibles and crosses were confiscated, and will be incinerated. (The Saudi government does not even spare the Quran from desecration. On Oct. 14, 2004, dozens of Saudi men and women carried copies of the Quran as they protested in support of reformers in the capital, Riyadh. Although they carried the Qurans in part to protect themselves from assault by police, they were charged by hundreds of riot police, who stepped on the books with their shoes, according to one of the protesters.)
As Muslims, we have not been as generous as our Christian and Jewish counterparts in respecting others' holy books and religious symbols. Saudi Arabia bans the importation or the display of crosses, Stars of David or any other religious symbols not approved by the Wahhabi establishment. TV programs that show Christian clergymen, crosses or Stars of David are censored.
The desecration of religious texts and symbols and intolerance of varying religious viewpoints and beliefs have been issues of some controversy inside Saudi Arabia. Ruled by a Wahhabi theocracy, the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia have made it difficult for Christians, Jews, Hindus and others, as well as dissenting sects of Islam, to visibly coexist inside the kingdom.
Another way in which religious and cultural issues are becoming more divisive is the Saudi treatment of Americans who are living in that country: Around 30,000 live and work in various parts of Saudi Arabia. These people are not allowed to celebrate their religious or even secular holidays. These include Christmas and Easter, but also Thanksgiving. All other Gulf states allow non-Islamic holidays to be celebrated.
The Saudi Embassy and other Saudi organizations in Washington have distributed hundreds of thousands of Qurans and many more Muslim books, some that have libeled Christians, Jews and others as pigs and monkeys. In Saudi school curricula, Jews and Christians are considered deviants and eternal enemies. By contrast, Muslim communities in the West are the first to admit that Western countries -- especially the U.S. -- provide Muslims the strongest freedoms and protections that allow Islam to thrive in the West. Meanwhile Christianity and Judaism, both indigenous to the Middle East, are maligned through systematic hostility by Middle Eastern governments and their religious apparatuses.
The lesson here is simple: If Muslims wish other religions to respect their beliefs and their Holy book, they should lead by example.
Mr. al-Ahmed is director of the Saudi Institute in Washington.
COMMENTARY
Hypocrisy Most Holy
By ALI AL-AHMED
May 20, 2005
With the revelation that a copy of the Quran may have been desecrated by U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Muslims and their governments -- including that of Saudi Arabia -- reacted angrily. This anger would have been understandable if the U.S. government's adopted policy was to desecrate our Quran. But even before the Newsweek report was discredited, that was never part of the allegations.
As a Muslim, I am able to purchase copies of the Quran in any bookstore in any American city, and study its contents in countless American universities. American museums spend millions to exhibit and celebrate Muslim arts and heritage. On the other hand, my Christian and other non-Muslim brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia -- where I come from -- are not even allowed to own a copy of their holy books. Indeed, the Saudi government desecrates and burns Bibles that its security forces confiscate at immigration points into the kingdom or during raids on Christian expatriates worshiping privately.
Soon after Newsweek published an account, later retracted, of an American soldier flushing a copy of the Quran down the toilet, the Saudi government voiced its strenuous disapproval. More specifically, the Saudi Embassy in Washington expressed "great concern" and urged the U.S. to "conduct a quick investigation."
Although considered as holy in Islam and mentioned in the Quran dozens of times, the Bible is banned in Saudi Arabia. This would seem curious to most people because of the fact that to most Muslims, the Bible is a holy book. But when it comes to Saudi Arabia we are not talking about most Muslims, but a tiny minority of hard-liners who constitute the Wahhabi Sect.
The Bible in Saudi Arabia may get a person killed, arrested, or deported. In September 1993, Sadeq Mallallah, 23, was beheaded in Qateef on a charge of apostasy for owning a Bible. The State Department's annual human rights reports detail the arrest and deportation of many Christian worshipers every year. Just days before Crown Prince Abdullah met President Bush last month, two Christian gatherings were stormed in Riyadh. Bibles and crosses were confiscated, and will be incinerated. (The Saudi government does not even spare the Quran from desecration. On Oct. 14, 2004, dozens of Saudi men and women carried copies of the Quran as they protested in support of reformers in the capital, Riyadh. Although they carried the Qurans in part to protect themselves from assault by police, they were charged by hundreds of riot police, who stepped on the books with their shoes, according to one of the protesters.)
As Muslims, we have not been as generous as our Christian and Jewish counterparts in respecting others' holy books and religious symbols. Saudi Arabia bans the importation or the display of crosses, Stars of David or any other religious symbols not approved by the Wahhabi establishment. TV programs that show Christian clergymen, crosses or Stars of David are censored.
The desecration of religious texts and symbols and intolerance of varying religious viewpoints and beliefs have been issues of some controversy inside Saudi Arabia. Ruled by a Wahhabi theocracy, the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia have made it difficult for Christians, Jews, Hindus and others, as well as dissenting sects of Islam, to visibly coexist inside the kingdom.
Another way in which religious and cultural issues are becoming more divisive is the Saudi treatment of Americans who are living in that country: Around 30,000 live and work in various parts of Saudi Arabia. These people are not allowed to celebrate their religious or even secular holidays. These include Christmas and Easter, but also Thanksgiving. All other Gulf states allow non-Islamic holidays to be celebrated.
The Saudi Embassy and other Saudi organizations in Washington have distributed hundreds of thousands of Qurans and many more Muslim books, some that have libeled Christians, Jews and others as pigs and monkeys. In Saudi school curricula, Jews and Christians are considered deviants and eternal enemies. By contrast, Muslim communities in the West are the first to admit that Western countries -- especially the U.S. -- provide Muslims the strongest freedoms and protections that allow Islam to thrive in the West. Meanwhile Christianity and Judaism, both indigenous to the Middle East, are maligned through systematic hostility by Middle Eastern governments and their religious apparatuses.
The lesson here is simple: If Muslims wish other religions to respect their beliefs and their Holy book, they should lead by example.
Mr. al-Ahmed is director of the Saudi Institute in Washington.
-
star_munir
- Posts: 1670
- Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:55 am
- Contact:
I think thats why Imam dont want us to follow the Arabs instead to follow the Ginans which Guide us towards true Islam.
Here is article on terrorist attack on Church in 2001 by Aryamon
SIXTEEN DEAD AT THE ALTAR
Yesterday six men came on fast motorbikes
To a church on Sunday afternoon in Bahawalpore.
They were bearded and carried high powered Uzis
Kalashnikovs, AK 57s, rapid firing German Mousers.
They parked and entered the church as though to pray
But turned and shut the huge doors behind them.
Silently, two stayed at the doors, two went to the right
Two to the left, advancing to fourth pew from back.
They unlimbered their weapons and adjusted
The sights and magazines and firing bolts.
The bishop, first aghast, calmed the congregation
"Don't panic, my children, I will ask what they want.'
And he asked, "My brothers this is a House of God
What can I, as his servant, do for you?".
The children in the congregation began to wail
Women sobbed, men felt the breath of cold death
The first volley of rapid fire cut the priest in half
And he fell onto the altar, staining it crimson red.
Someone yelled in Punjabi, "Pai, kee karde ho,
Tanu Rabb di kasam, is tarah bacche nu na maro."
With methodical precision each of the armed men
Slowly leveled their guns at shoulder level and fired
Halima Bibi, Zulekha Jan, Manual Masih,
Little John, 10 years old, and his old aunty Janu
Pow pow pow, the shots rand loud in the church
Bounding off the nave and shut doors and walls ...
As suddenly the men signaled each other
Nodded as though this was enough and time to go
They downed their weapons and hid them in cloth
Turned once and all on cue raised a fist and yelled
"Allah-o-Akbar!".
They unlocked the huge doors an stepped out
In bright morning sun, and settled on their bikes
And rode away into the dusty silent street
As men do when they return home after work
Inside in full view of their Christ eleven lay
Dead or dying, shattered, gasping, bewildered
In this strange moment of sudden death in church
Of St. Dominic which stands as it has always stood
In the busy streets of old Bahawalpore.
Arya.
Here is article on terrorist attack on Church in 2001 by Aryamon
SIXTEEN DEAD AT THE ALTAR
Yesterday six men came on fast motorbikes
To a church on Sunday afternoon in Bahawalpore.
They were bearded and carried high powered Uzis
Kalashnikovs, AK 57s, rapid firing German Mousers.
They parked and entered the church as though to pray
But turned and shut the huge doors behind them.
Silently, two stayed at the doors, two went to the right
Two to the left, advancing to fourth pew from back.
They unlimbered their weapons and adjusted
The sights and magazines and firing bolts.
The bishop, first aghast, calmed the congregation
"Don't panic, my children, I will ask what they want.'
And he asked, "My brothers this is a House of God
What can I, as his servant, do for you?".
The children in the congregation began to wail
Women sobbed, men felt the breath of cold death
The first volley of rapid fire cut the priest in half
And he fell onto the altar, staining it crimson red.
Someone yelled in Punjabi, "Pai, kee karde ho,
Tanu Rabb di kasam, is tarah bacche nu na maro."
With methodical precision each of the armed men
Slowly leveled their guns at shoulder level and fired
Halima Bibi, Zulekha Jan, Manual Masih,
Little John, 10 years old, and his old aunty Janu
Pow pow pow, the shots rand loud in the church
Bounding off the nave and shut doors and walls ...
As suddenly the men signaled each other
Nodded as though this was enough and time to go
They downed their weapons and hid them in cloth
Turned once and all on cue raised a fist and yelled
"Allah-o-Akbar!".
They unlocked the huge doors an stepped out
In bright morning sun, and settled on their bikes
And rode away into the dusty silent street
As men do when they return home after work
Inside in full view of their Christ eleven lay
Dead or dying, shattered, gasping, bewildered
In this strange moment of sudden death in church
Of St. Dominic which stands as it has always stood
In the busy streets of old Bahawalpore.
Arya.
-
star_munir
- Posts: 1670
- Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:55 am
- Contact:
From Zee News
Heavy casualties in Afghan mosque blast
Kandahar, June 01: A bomb exploded today inside a mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and local residents said as many as 40 people were killed or wounded.
The blast occurred inside the Mullah Abdul Fayaz mosque in the center of the city. The place of worship was named after a top Muslim leader who was killed by gunmen on Sunday in the city.
Daoud Khan, a resident near the mosque, said up to 40 people appeared to have been killed or wounded.
There was no immediate word from authorities.
A reporter at the site saw many body parts strewn around the mosque.
Bureau Report
Heavy casualties in Afghan mosque blast
Kandahar, June 01: A bomb exploded today inside a mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and local residents said as many as 40 people were killed or wounded.
The blast occurred inside the Mullah Abdul Fayaz mosque in the center of the city. The place of worship was named after a top Muslim leader who was killed by gunmen on Sunday in the city.
Daoud Khan, a resident near the mosque, said up to 40 people appeared to have been killed or wounded.
There was no immediate word from authorities.
A reporter at the site saw many body parts strewn around the mosque.
Bureau Report
Islam Through the Front Door
Asra Nomani, founder of the Muslim Women's Freedom Tour, explains her effort to find a place for women in Islam.
Interview by Rebecca Phillips
Asra Nomani's "Tantrika" caused a stir when it was released in 2003; the Muslim journalist's first book was an account of her experiences while investigating the Tantric sex phenomenon. But it is her latest book, "Standing Alone in Mecca," that might prove to be more controversial. The story of her hajj pilgrimage and an exploration of the historical rights of Muslim women, the book includes what Nomani calls the "Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in Mosques" and the "Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in the Bedroom." Along with the book, Nomani recently launched the Muslim Women's Freedom Tour, a series of women-led Muslim prayer services in cities across the U.S. The tour kicked off on March 18, in New York, where Amina Wadud, professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led a Friday jum'ah service. On a break from the tour, Nomani spoke with Beliefnet about feminism in Islam, her vision for the tour, and the kind of Islam she hopes to impart to her son.
Were you surprised by the reaction to the prayer service on March 18?
I was shocked at the amount of opposition, from Mecca to Indonesia, but I'm thrilled by all the support. I wondered whether this event might help smoke Osama bin Laden out. The idea of women challenging men is so offensive to the extremist ideology that they're really incensed.
When I walked through the front door of my hometown mosque [in Morgantown, West Va.] and into the main hall, I was stunned at how fierce the opposition was to women's rights. I'm still trying to figure it out, to understand what the challenge is all about.
Do you view this struggle as a civil rights issue?
To me it's very much a social justice issue. The Muslim world can't pretend to practice social justice as long as we keep women in the shadows. Making women invisible is a precursor to violent societies.
When you were growing up, what was your formal Islamic training like? I know you think it's important to take back the faith intellectually--does your background allow for that?
At age 39, I'm having serious flashbacks to when I was a 10-year old girl and my mother was my teacher. I was so enthusiastic about learning the Qur'an. I wanted to be a hafiz who could memorize the entire Qur'an. I prayed five times a day, I invoked the divine powers in every step of my life, I fasted during Ramadan. But as I grew older, I felt less valued within my Muslim community. On one hand, my parents were telling me I could be everything I wanted to be. But the Muslim community expected me to be silent and docile and submissive. So I became a leader in a secular way, as a journalist. We all have dreams that we can change the world, yet I never felt that I could do that within my Muslim faith.
What's happened to me since September 11 is that I've come to recognize we can all step forward. At the March 18 prayer service, I stood before the congregation and spoke, which is not allowed in most of the Muslim world.
So in your own mosque, could you be in the same room as the men while praying?
No. In two out of three mosques in America, a woman is not even in the same room, let alone in the front row. In Morgantown, I have my little space in the back. Once I asked to make an announcement at the microphone, and was denied. No woman has ever stood at the microphone there.
This is a struggle of all faiths. But I've stood in the front of churches and synagogues where women have broken the barrier. And now I feel ready to stand as a leader in our mosque's prayer hall. It's like a personal revolution.
What is your sense of how many other women are having that same personal revolution?
So many women are having it. They affirm for me every time they write to me--from Turkey, Malaysia, and Africa--that we're doing the right thing. For so long, women have had their voices denied and have been told that there can't even be a conversation about this. Now these women know they aren't alone.
So this is not just a phenomenon among American Muslim women?
No, this is a global phenomenon. The world can only be better served if women can break free.
I noticed a few protesters outside the prayer hall during the March 18 service. One sign took you to task for your previous book, "Tantrika." Do you question how valid a spokesperson for Muslim women you can really be, if other people condemned your previous book?
If they didn't have a problem with "Tantrika," they would have had a problem with something else about my life. That sign said, "Asra Nomani can speak about Islam when she repents for her Tantric sex fantasies." What it revealed to me was just how afraid people in our community are of discussing sexuality. Sexuality is something we have to process in our communities in a healthy way, rather than repressing it.
I hear so often the criticism that we could have a better spokesperson than I am. But I don't claim to be a spokesperson for anyone but myself.
This one prayer service got a lot of media coverage. How is this going to be sustained in the future?
I am leading another prayer service in Boston to help show the New York event was not a one-time event, that women will continue to reclaim their rights. I plan to go from city to city to talk about the issues I raise in my book, to tap the local scene, and to see what action they want to take to make our Muslim communities more tolerant. That's why I called my book tour the Muslim Women's Freedom Tour.
So will there be prayer events in many more cities?
Yes, I think there will be. We broke an important barrier and we have to continue to reclaim the rights that we asserted there and show that there are countless Muslim men and women who want Islam to be expressed in a different way. Right now it's expressed in such a dark way, yet it was so beautiful that Friday. It was a safe environment for everyone. We made it so all people could be comfortable, so families could pray together. It felt like the same kind of communal spirit that I felt in Mecca, where people naturally float into whatever space they want--if it's all women they want, they go there; if it's all men they want, they go there; if they want to pray beside their husband or brother, they do that. Our mosques and our communities take that natural flow out when they segregate women from men.
How else did your hajj help you clarify these issues?
The hajj [pilgrimage to Mecca] was really the transformative experience that people say it can be. I'm a real visual person. I had heard the name of Hajar [Abraham's concubine, mother of Ishmael], but when I walked in her footsteps, I could feel her strength. When I passed the Kentucky Fried Chicken in the Mecca of today, I thought about Mecca then, and about Khadijah, the prophet's first wife, and her life as a caravan trader. When I went to the mosque in Medinah and was unable to enter, I thought about the prophet Muhammad's wife Aisha, who was really one of Islam's first theologians. I could feel the pulse of all these strong women.
I came to realize that all my years working as a reporter had put me in a place to investigate the truth of women's place in Islam. My training makes me question. When they tell me that I have to take the back door and pray in the balcony, I question it and find out the truth--that I don't. I think what separates my frustration from the frustration of a typical Muslim is that I'm not afraid to pick up the phone and call anyone. I've spent my adulthood [as a Wall Street Journal reporter] challenging the spin doctors in corporate America, so it's natural to challenge the spin doctors in Islam.
Can you give some specific examples from the Qur'an or Islamic law that challenge the typical view of women's place in Islam?
There are a few passages that mean a lot to me. This isn't about what you're asking, but one that inspires me is from "Al-Nisa" (The Women):
Oh ye who believe!
Stand out firmly
For justice, as witnesses
To God, even if it may be against
Yourselves, or your parents
Or your kin.
Al-Nisa, The Women, 4:135
Some others that are used to assert women's equal rights are:
Whoever does an atom's weight of good, whether male or female, and is a believer, all such enter into Paradise.
--Al Ghafir, The Forgiver, 40:40
and:
The true believers, both men and women, are friends to each other. They enjoin what is just and forbid what is evil; they attend to their prayers and pay the alms and obey God and His apostle. On these God will have mercy. He is Mighty and Wise.
--Al-Araf, The Heights, 7:71
It was Amina Wadud [Islamic studies professor at Virginia Commonwealth University] who was the one who told me about these passages. She liberated me from so much of the garbage that I had been told in the community. I had literally been told that a woman's voice is not supposed to be heard in a mosque. But really it's not that clear-cut, and there's a great argument against that position.
Was there ever a time in your life when you gave up on Islam, when you decided it wasn't the right religion for you?
I really wondered if I would continue as a Muslim when I came back from Karachi. I was still trying to absorb my friend Danny [Pearl]'s murder. I had a baby in my belly who my baby's father couldn’t accept because I was unmarried. I wondered at the time if this was really my faith. I went to a Methodist church and was welcomed there. They gave me kinship and friendship and strength. But then I stayed within the protection of my parents, who are good Muslims, and I started to see incrementally over time expressions of compassion from other Muslims.
I discovered the truth, and the truth has kept me within Islam.
Do you have a particular vision for the Islam that your son grows up with?
I really dream about sitting at my son's wedding one day with his bride beside him, with a woman equal to a man as a witness, a woman presiding over the ceremony, his beloved equal to him in the eyes of our community. I want my son to be the feminist and visionary that I believe the Prophet Muhammad was. He worked to improve the condition of women in the seventh century, and we've only gone backwards since.
********
What Are Muslim Women's Rights?
At a major Muslim convention, Asra Nomani addresses the crowd about gender equality in Islam.
By Asra Nomani
Excerpted from "Standing Alone in Mecca" with permission of HarperSanFrancisco.
Going to the Windy City meant going full circle. I had left in 1992 to pursue a lie. I had walked out of a relationship with a man because he was a Christian. I married another man because he had the right pedigree: Muslim. In the twelve years since, I had tried to resolve the paradoxes within my identity so that I could live truthfully and sincerely.
I was committed to being honest about who I am. Most women, although not all, wore the hijab in Chicago. Even women who didn't ordinarily cover their hair did for the convention so that they wouldn't be the subject of gossip. I cover my hair only in the mosque, and I wasn't going to do it now just for public appearance.
After all of the other panelists had spoken--most with Power Point presentations--I took the podium. I gazed softly at the audience and thanked the Islamic Society of North America. I explained that the presentation was the result of almost two years of work inspired by the transformative experience of praying together with my family in Mecca on the holy pilgrimage of the hajj in February 2003. I had made that journey with the help of the Islamic Society of North America, and I thanked the society for that experience and the opportunity to speak at the convention. My points were simple. "Islam is at a crossroads much like the place where the prophet Muhammad found himself when he was on the cusp of a new dawn with his migration to Medina from Mecca. Medina became 'the City of Illumination' because of the wisdom with which the prophet nurtured his ummah. In much the same way, the Muslim world has the opportunity to rise to a place of deep and sincere enlightenment, inspired by the greatest teachings of Islam. It is our choice which path we take. It is our mandate to take action to ensure that we define our communities as tolerant, inclusive, and compassionate places that value and inspire all within our fold."
The problem was clear. "There are many model mosques that affirm women's rights. Yet women are systematically denied rights that Islam granted them in the seventh century in mosques throughout America. Islam grants all people inalienable rights to respect, dignity, participation, leadership, voice, knowledge, and worship. These rights must be granted to women, as well as men, in the mosques and Islamic centers that are a part of our Muslim communities. Islamic teaching seeks expressions of modesty between men and women. But many mosques in America and beyond have gone well beyond that principle by defining themselves with cultural traditions that perpetuate a system of separate accommodations that provides women with wholly unequal services for prayer and education. And yet, excluding women ignores the rights the prophet Muhammad gave them in the seventh century when he created a Muslim ummah in Medina and represents innovations that emerged after the prophet died."
I gave evidence of the rights denied in mosques throughout America and laid out the Islamic arguments that had empowered me to take action in my mosque in Morgantown. "It is time for our communities to embody the essential principles of equity, tolerance, and inclusion within Islam," I said. "And it is incumbent upon each of us as Muslims to stand up for those principles."
I told them what I had come to realize in the two years since January 2001 when the Dalai Lama had set me on my path toward Mecca. Terrorists transformed our world into a more dangerous place when they attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Before we knew it, a minority of Islamic fundamentalists who preached hatred of the West were defining Islam in the world. Alas, moderates, including myself, have been a "silent majority," remaining largely quiet. A combination of fear, shame, and apathy has contributed to a culture of silence among even those of us who are discontented with the status quo in Muslim society. Moderate Muslims have a great responsibility to define Islam and their communities in the world. For me, this effort started at home when I walked up to the front door of my mosque for the first time on the eve of Ramadan 2003. It is time, I said, for us to reclaim the rights Islam granted to women in the seventh century. Toward that end, I humbly introduced my poster with the Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in Mosques.
The rights are simple: the right to enter a mosque; the right to use the main door; the right to have visual and auditory access to the musalla (the main sanctuary); the right to pray in the main sanctuary without being separated by a barrier; the right to address any and all members of the congregation; the right to hold leadership positions, including positions on the board of directors; the right to be greeted and addressed cordially; and the right to receive respectful treatment and to be exempt from gossip and slander.
After reading the rights, I told the audience, "Ultimately, it is incumbent upon Islamic organizations, community leaders, academics, and mosques to respond to this call for improved rights for women in mosques by endorsing and promoting a campaign, modeling it after their very successful educational and legal campaigns to protect the civil liberties of Muslim men and women in other areas. To do so would honor not only Muslim women but also Islam. The journey is never complete, and a long road remains in front of us, but we have as inspiration a time in the seventh century when a new day lay ahead of a caravan trader who had as much to fear as we do today but nonetheless transcended his doubts and fears to create an ummah to which we all belong today. Allow us all to rise to our highest potential."
With a deep breath, I sat down, not knowing what to expect next.
Although there were four other speakers, a torrent of questions came at me when members of the audience stood at the microphone.
There were three hecklers. One admonished me for not saying the code phrase "Peace be upon him" after the name of the prophet. Another part of our inside language is "Sall-Allahu aleyhi wa sallam" (May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, abbreviated as SAW), said after any mention of the prophet or an angel. "The Clans" in the Qur'an (33:56) says, "The Prophet is blessed by God and His angels. Bless him then, you that are true believers, and greet him with a worthy salutation."
At the dais, the director of the Long Island mosque, Faroque Khan, a physician originally from India, had just spoken about the powerful interfaith work his mosque had done after 9/11 by opening its doors, and he defended me from his seat. "She is a brave daughter of Islam. Do not criticize her for such little things." The critics were undeterred. A young man stood up and identified himself as a member of the Muslim Students' Association. "Where is your proof?" he demanded angrily, shaking his head, his beard a blur in front of me. I pointed to the seventy-four footnotes in the reprint of the article my father and I wrote for the Journal of Islamic Law and Society. "The Sunnah of the prophet will never change," he said, shaking his head fiercely again. I stared at his eyes, so wide and menacing. I will never forget those eyes, I told myself, not realizing how useful that observation would become when I confronted the young man's rage again, days later.
At that moment, though, I didn't know I'd ever cross paths with him again, and I actually felt sorry for him that he felt so threatened by the simple bill of rights. I wanted to scream: these rights are the Sunnah of the prophet. I knew what lay beneath his anger. Some men don't want to relinquish the power and control it has taken them centuries to accumulate. Some men think it is their God-given right to express this power and control over women. But the prophet gave women rights that men deny them today, and it is our Islamic duty to reclaim those rights so that we can be stronger citizens of the world.
A twenty-four-year-old African American woman from Boston, Nakia Jackson, stood up. The women in her mosque prayed in a urine-stained, rat-infested room that doubled as a storage closet. And they accepted the status quo. "I feel so alone. What advice do you have for someone like me?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"You are not alone," I told her. "So often I have stood physically alone in my mosque in Morgantown. But I have felt the spiritual press of so many kindred spirits who stand with me. I am with you. You are not alone."
Afterward, I was mobbed. I hugged so many women, young and old, that I lost count. And I received the encouragement of so many men, young and old, that my faith was renewed. "We did it!" I told my parents when I called home later.
Asra Nomani, founder of the Muslim Women's Freedom Tour, explains her effort to find a place for women in Islam.
Interview by Rebecca Phillips
Asra Nomani's "Tantrika" caused a stir when it was released in 2003; the Muslim journalist's first book was an account of her experiences while investigating the Tantric sex phenomenon. But it is her latest book, "Standing Alone in Mecca," that might prove to be more controversial. The story of her hajj pilgrimage and an exploration of the historical rights of Muslim women, the book includes what Nomani calls the "Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in Mosques" and the "Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in the Bedroom." Along with the book, Nomani recently launched the Muslim Women's Freedom Tour, a series of women-led Muslim prayer services in cities across the U.S. The tour kicked off on March 18, in New York, where Amina Wadud, professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led a Friday jum'ah service. On a break from the tour, Nomani spoke with Beliefnet about feminism in Islam, her vision for the tour, and the kind of Islam she hopes to impart to her son.
Were you surprised by the reaction to the prayer service on March 18?
I was shocked at the amount of opposition, from Mecca to Indonesia, but I'm thrilled by all the support. I wondered whether this event might help smoke Osama bin Laden out. The idea of women challenging men is so offensive to the extremist ideology that they're really incensed.
When I walked through the front door of my hometown mosque [in Morgantown, West Va.] and into the main hall, I was stunned at how fierce the opposition was to women's rights. I'm still trying to figure it out, to understand what the challenge is all about.
Do you view this struggle as a civil rights issue?
To me it's very much a social justice issue. The Muslim world can't pretend to practice social justice as long as we keep women in the shadows. Making women invisible is a precursor to violent societies.
When you were growing up, what was your formal Islamic training like? I know you think it's important to take back the faith intellectually--does your background allow for that?
At age 39, I'm having serious flashbacks to when I was a 10-year old girl and my mother was my teacher. I was so enthusiastic about learning the Qur'an. I wanted to be a hafiz who could memorize the entire Qur'an. I prayed five times a day, I invoked the divine powers in every step of my life, I fasted during Ramadan. But as I grew older, I felt less valued within my Muslim community. On one hand, my parents were telling me I could be everything I wanted to be. But the Muslim community expected me to be silent and docile and submissive. So I became a leader in a secular way, as a journalist. We all have dreams that we can change the world, yet I never felt that I could do that within my Muslim faith.
What's happened to me since September 11 is that I've come to recognize we can all step forward. At the March 18 prayer service, I stood before the congregation and spoke, which is not allowed in most of the Muslim world.
So in your own mosque, could you be in the same room as the men while praying?
No. In two out of three mosques in America, a woman is not even in the same room, let alone in the front row. In Morgantown, I have my little space in the back. Once I asked to make an announcement at the microphone, and was denied. No woman has ever stood at the microphone there.
This is a struggle of all faiths. But I've stood in the front of churches and synagogues where women have broken the barrier. And now I feel ready to stand as a leader in our mosque's prayer hall. It's like a personal revolution.
What is your sense of how many other women are having that same personal revolution?
So many women are having it. They affirm for me every time they write to me--from Turkey, Malaysia, and Africa--that we're doing the right thing. For so long, women have had their voices denied and have been told that there can't even be a conversation about this. Now these women know they aren't alone.
So this is not just a phenomenon among American Muslim women?
No, this is a global phenomenon. The world can only be better served if women can break free.
I noticed a few protesters outside the prayer hall during the March 18 service. One sign took you to task for your previous book, "Tantrika." Do you question how valid a spokesperson for Muslim women you can really be, if other people condemned your previous book?
If they didn't have a problem with "Tantrika," they would have had a problem with something else about my life. That sign said, "Asra Nomani can speak about Islam when she repents for her Tantric sex fantasies." What it revealed to me was just how afraid people in our community are of discussing sexuality. Sexuality is something we have to process in our communities in a healthy way, rather than repressing it.
I hear so often the criticism that we could have a better spokesperson than I am. But I don't claim to be a spokesperson for anyone but myself.
This one prayer service got a lot of media coverage. How is this going to be sustained in the future?
I am leading another prayer service in Boston to help show the New York event was not a one-time event, that women will continue to reclaim their rights. I plan to go from city to city to talk about the issues I raise in my book, to tap the local scene, and to see what action they want to take to make our Muslim communities more tolerant. That's why I called my book tour the Muslim Women's Freedom Tour.
So will there be prayer events in many more cities?
Yes, I think there will be. We broke an important barrier and we have to continue to reclaim the rights that we asserted there and show that there are countless Muslim men and women who want Islam to be expressed in a different way. Right now it's expressed in such a dark way, yet it was so beautiful that Friday. It was a safe environment for everyone. We made it so all people could be comfortable, so families could pray together. It felt like the same kind of communal spirit that I felt in Mecca, where people naturally float into whatever space they want--if it's all women they want, they go there; if it's all men they want, they go there; if they want to pray beside their husband or brother, they do that. Our mosques and our communities take that natural flow out when they segregate women from men.
How else did your hajj help you clarify these issues?
The hajj [pilgrimage to Mecca] was really the transformative experience that people say it can be. I'm a real visual person. I had heard the name of Hajar [Abraham's concubine, mother of Ishmael], but when I walked in her footsteps, I could feel her strength. When I passed the Kentucky Fried Chicken in the Mecca of today, I thought about Mecca then, and about Khadijah, the prophet's first wife, and her life as a caravan trader. When I went to the mosque in Medinah and was unable to enter, I thought about the prophet Muhammad's wife Aisha, who was really one of Islam's first theologians. I could feel the pulse of all these strong women.
I came to realize that all my years working as a reporter had put me in a place to investigate the truth of women's place in Islam. My training makes me question. When they tell me that I have to take the back door and pray in the balcony, I question it and find out the truth--that I don't. I think what separates my frustration from the frustration of a typical Muslim is that I'm not afraid to pick up the phone and call anyone. I've spent my adulthood [as a Wall Street Journal reporter] challenging the spin doctors in corporate America, so it's natural to challenge the spin doctors in Islam.
Can you give some specific examples from the Qur'an or Islamic law that challenge the typical view of women's place in Islam?
There are a few passages that mean a lot to me. This isn't about what you're asking, but one that inspires me is from "Al-Nisa" (The Women):
Oh ye who believe!
Stand out firmly
For justice, as witnesses
To God, even if it may be against
Yourselves, or your parents
Or your kin.
Al-Nisa, The Women, 4:135
Some others that are used to assert women's equal rights are:
Whoever does an atom's weight of good, whether male or female, and is a believer, all such enter into Paradise.
--Al Ghafir, The Forgiver, 40:40
and:
The true believers, both men and women, are friends to each other. They enjoin what is just and forbid what is evil; they attend to their prayers and pay the alms and obey God and His apostle. On these God will have mercy. He is Mighty and Wise.
--Al-Araf, The Heights, 7:71
It was Amina Wadud [Islamic studies professor at Virginia Commonwealth University] who was the one who told me about these passages. She liberated me from so much of the garbage that I had been told in the community. I had literally been told that a woman's voice is not supposed to be heard in a mosque. But really it's not that clear-cut, and there's a great argument against that position.
Was there ever a time in your life when you gave up on Islam, when you decided it wasn't the right religion for you?
I really wondered if I would continue as a Muslim when I came back from Karachi. I was still trying to absorb my friend Danny [Pearl]'s murder. I had a baby in my belly who my baby's father couldn’t accept because I was unmarried. I wondered at the time if this was really my faith. I went to a Methodist church and was welcomed there. They gave me kinship and friendship and strength. But then I stayed within the protection of my parents, who are good Muslims, and I started to see incrementally over time expressions of compassion from other Muslims.
I discovered the truth, and the truth has kept me within Islam.
Do you have a particular vision for the Islam that your son grows up with?
I really dream about sitting at my son's wedding one day with his bride beside him, with a woman equal to a man as a witness, a woman presiding over the ceremony, his beloved equal to him in the eyes of our community. I want my son to be the feminist and visionary that I believe the Prophet Muhammad was. He worked to improve the condition of women in the seventh century, and we've only gone backwards since.
********
What Are Muslim Women's Rights?
At a major Muslim convention, Asra Nomani addresses the crowd about gender equality in Islam.
By Asra Nomani
Excerpted from "Standing Alone in Mecca" with permission of HarperSanFrancisco.
Going to the Windy City meant going full circle. I had left in 1992 to pursue a lie. I had walked out of a relationship with a man because he was a Christian. I married another man because he had the right pedigree: Muslim. In the twelve years since, I had tried to resolve the paradoxes within my identity so that I could live truthfully and sincerely.
I was committed to being honest about who I am. Most women, although not all, wore the hijab in Chicago. Even women who didn't ordinarily cover their hair did for the convention so that they wouldn't be the subject of gossip. I cover my hair only in the mosque, and I wasn't going to do it now just for public appearance.
After all of the other panelists had spoken--most with Power Point presentations--I took the podium. I gazed softly at the audience and thanked the Islamic Society of North America. I explained that the presentation was the result of almost two years of work inspired by the transformative experience of praying together with my family in Mecca on the holy pilgrimage of the hajj in February 2003. I had made that journey with the help of the Islamic Society of North America, and I thanked the society for that experience and the opportunity to speak at the convention. My points were simple. "Islam is at a crossroads much like the place where the prophet Muhammad found himself when he was on the cusp of a new dawn with his migration to Medina from Mecca. Medina became 'the City of Illumination' because of the wisdom with which the prophet nurtured his ummah. In much the same way, the Muslim world has the opportunity to rise to a place of deep and sincere enlightenment, inspired by the greatest teachings of Islam. It is our choice which path we take. It is our mandate to take action to ensure that we define our communities as tolerant, inclusive, and compassionate places that value and inspire all within our fold."
The problem was clear. "There are many model mosques that affirm women's rights. Yet women are systematically denied rights that Islam granted them in the seventh century in mosques throughout America. Islam grants all people inalienable rights to respect, dignity, participation, leadership, voice, knowledge, and worship. These rights must be granted to women, as well as men, in the mosques and Islamic centers that are a part of our Muslim communities. Islamic teaching seeks expressions of modesty between men and women. But many mosques in America and beyond have gone well beyond that principle by defining themselves with cultural traditions that perpetuate a system of separate accommodations that provides women with wholly unequal services for prayer and education. And yet, excluding women ignores the rights the prophet Muhammad gave them in the seventh century when he created a Muslim ummah in Medina and represents innovations that emerged after the prophet died."
I gave evidence of the rights denied in mosques throughout America and laid out the Islamic arguments that had empowered me to take action in my mosque in Morgantown. "It is time for our communities to embody the essential principles of equity, tolerance, and inclusion within Islam," I said. "And it is incumbent upon each of us as Muslims to stand up for those principles."
I told them what I had come to realize in the two years since January 2001 when the Dalai Lama had set me on my path toward Mecca. Terrorists transformed our world into a more dangerous place when they attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Before we knew it, a minority of Islamic fundamentalists who preached hatred of the West were defining Islam in the world. Alas, moderates, including myself, have been a "silent majority," remaining largely quiet. A combination of fear, shame, and apathy has contributed to a culture of silence among even those of us who are discontented with the status quo in Muslim society. Moderate Muslims have a great responsibility to define Islam and their communities in the world. For me, this effort started at home when I walked up to the front door of my mosque for the first time on the eve of Ramadan 2003. It is time, I said, for us to reclaim the rights Islam granted to women in the seventh century. Toward that end, I humbly introduced my poster with the Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in Mosques.
The rights are simple: the right to enter a mosque; the right to use the main door; the right to have visual and auditory access to the musalla (the main sanctuary); the right to pray in the main sanctuary without being separated by a barrier; the right to address any and all members of the congregation; the right to hold leadership positions, including positions on the board of directors; the right to be greeted and addressed cordially; and the right to receive respectful treatment and to be exempt from gossip and slander.
After reading the rights, I told the audience, "Ultimately, it is incumbent upon Islamic organizations, community leaders, academics, and mosques to respond to this call for improved rights for women in mosques by endorsing and promoting a campaign, modeling it after their very successful educational and legal campaigns to protect the civil liberties of Muslim men and women in other areas. To do so would honor not only Muslim women but also Islam. The journey is never complete, and a long road remains in front of us, but we have as inspiration a time in the seventh century when a new day lay ahead of a caravan trader who had as much to fear as we do today but nonetheless transcended his doubts and fears to create an ummah to which we all belong today. Allow us all to rise to our highest potential."
With a deep breath, I sat down, not knowing what to expect next.
Although there were four other speakers, a torrent of questions came at me when members of the audience stood at the microphone.
There were three hecklers. One admonished me for not saying the code phrase "Peace be upon him" after the name of the prophet. Another part of our inside language is "Sall-Allahu aleyhi wa sallam" (May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, abbreviated as SAW), said after any mention of the prophet or an angel. "The Clans" in the Qur'an (33:56) says, "The Prophet is blessed by God and His angels. Bless him then, you that are true believers, and greet him with a worthy salutation."
At the dais, the director of the Long Island mosque, Faroque Khan, a physician originally from India, had just spoken about the powerful interfaith work his mosque had done after 9/11 by opening its doors, and he defended me from his seat. "She is a brave daughter of Islam. Do not criticize her for such little things." The critics were undeterred. A young man stood up and identified himself as a member of the Muslim Students' Association. "Where is your proof?" he demanded angrily, shaking his head, his beard a blur in front of me. I pointed to the seventy-four footnotes in the reprint of the article my father and I wrote for the Journal of Islamic Law and Society. "The Sunnah of the prophet will never change," he said, shaking his head fiercely again. I stared at his eyes, so wide and menacing. I will never forget those eyes, I told myself, not realizing how useful that observation would become when I confronted the young man's rage again, days later.
At that moment, though, I didn't know I'd ever cross paths with him again, and I actually felt sorry for him that he felt so threatened by the simple bill of rights. I wanted to scream: these rights are the Sunnah of the prophet. I knew what lay beneath his anger. Some men don't want to relinquish the power and control it has taken them centuries to accumulate. Some men think it is their God-given right to express this power and control over women. But the prophet gave women rights that men deny them today, and it is our Islamic duty to reclaim those rights so that we can be stronger citizens of the world.
A twenty-four-year-old African American woman from Boston, Nakia Jackson, stood up. The women in her mosque prayed in a urine-stained, rat-infested room that doubled as a storage closet. And they accepted the status quo. "I feel so alone. What advice do you have for someone like me?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"You are not alone," I told her. "So often I have stood physically alone in my mosque in Morgantown. But I have felt the spiritual press of so many kindred spirits who stand with me. I am with you. You are not alone."
Afterward, I was mobbed. I hugged so many women, young and old, that I lost count. And I received the encouragement of so many men, young and old, that my faith was renewed. "We did it!" I told my parents when I called home later.
"I really wondered if I would continue as a Muslim when I came back from Karachi. I was still trying to absorb my friend Danny [Pearl]'s murder. I had a baby in my belly who my baby's father couldn’t accept because I was unmarried. I wondered at the time if this was really my faith. I went to a Methodist church and was welcomed there. They gave me kinship and friendship and strength. But then I stayed within the protection of my parents, who are good Muslims, and I started to see incrementally over time expressions of compassion from other Muslims.
I discovered the truth, and the truth has kept me within Islam. "
Come on, she just wants publicity.
Cheap shot, post 9/11 publicity.
I discovered the truth, and the truth has kept me within Islam. "
Come on, she just wants publicity.
Cheap shot, post 9/11 publicity.
from the June 29, 2005 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0629/p09s01-cojh.html
Islamic women rise up
By John Hughes
SALT LAKE CITY - It may at present be only a whisper. But it could get louder and louder. It is the voice of Islamic women in the Middle East protesting their longtime political and economic second-class status. It is a voice of indignation from women who have long been suppressed in traditionally male- dominated societies.
In recent days it has been heard in Egypt where women were fighting back against harassment from supporters of the ruling party.
It has been heard in Iran where women, despite the election of a hard-line conservative president, demonstrated against sex discrimination under that country's Islamic leadership.
It was heard in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where Arab women responded approvingly as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice bluntly condemned the refusal of their rulers to give women the right to vote.
It was heard in Kuwait as women's rights activists lauded - and some conservative men deplored - the appointment of the first-ever woman, political science professor Massouma al-Mubarak, to a cabinet position.
And it was heard in Pakistan where Mukhtar Mai defied the government that sought to silence her for speaking out against a barbaric custom imposed upon her: gang-raping a young woman for an offense committed by her brother, traditionally followed by the suicide of the rape victim.
In many Arab nations of Islam, women have often been relegated to obscurity, denied a role economically, politically, socially. One out of every two Arab women can neither read nor write. A 2002 report prepared by Arab intellectuals for the United Nations charged that "utilization of Arab women's capabilities through political and economic participation remains the lowest in the world." Women occupy only 3.5 percent of all seats in parliaments of Arab countries, compared to 11 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, and 12.9 percent in Latin America and Caribbean countries.
In many countries women suffer from unequal citizenship, and are denied the right to vote or hold office. In a somber conclusion, the UN report declared: "Society as a whole suffers when half of its productive potential is stifled." But at least in the countries I've named, some women are speaking out and declaring that they've lived under male-dominated rule long enough.
In Egypt the women's movement has been energized by attacks on females from supporters of President Mubarak. Women have been taking a key role in trying to organize opposition to the Mubarak regime. Earlier this year, Hosni Mubarak announced reforms that will permit more than one candidate to run for president later this year. Critics proclaim that all this is a sham, that Mr. Mubarak's reelection is greased, and that those who seek to generate legitimate opposition are being intimidated. Part of this intimidation, they say, is groping and abuse of women demonstrators and the female relatives of male opposition politicians.
This has caused a backlash with not only women, but also with disgusted males, who have inveighed against the government.
In Iran, Islamic women have participated in rare - and unauthorized - demonstrations against sex discrimination by the ruling Islamic regime. Iranian law requireswomen to assume inferior roles to men; they are rarely promoted to senior roles in government service, and need permission from their husbands to work outside the home or travel abroad. Though Iranian women are largely pessimistic about the prospects for reform until there is a regime change, they nevertheless forced candidates in the recent presidential election to pay lip service to the issue of women's rights.
In the Islamic land of Pakistan, Mukhtar Mai has defied tribal tradition and instead of committing suicide after being raped, has fought back and secured the conviction of the rapists - and she did it with the support of a local Islamic leader.
Her subsequent harassment by authorities, including house arrest, a ban on travel to the US, and seizure of her passport - let alone a court order freeing her attackers - has roused international anger and pressure from the US government upon a Pakistani government that has been an important ally of the US in the war against terrorism. Tuesday, Ms. Mai won a victory when Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered her attackers to be rearrested.
In a vocal manner that hasn't been evident before, women in the Islamic lands are speaking out. Their case is being given traction by President Bush's emphasis on fostering democracy in lands that lack it - even though they be longtime allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
There cannot be democracy while women of the region are disadvantaged. There cannot be economic progress while half of the region's productive potential is stifled.
• John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, is editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret Morning News.
Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0629/p09s01-cojh.html
Islamic women rise up
By John Hughes
SALT LAKE CITY - It may at present be only a whisper. But it could get louder and louder. It is the voice of Islamic women in the Middle East protesting their longtime political and economic second-class status. It is a voice of indignation from women who have long been suppressed in traditionally male- dominated societies.
In recent days it has been heard in Egypt where women were fighting back against harassment from supporters of the ruling party.
It has been heard in Iran where women, despite the election of a hard-line conservative president, demonstrated against sex discrimination under that country's Islamic leadership.
It was heard in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where Arab women responded approvingly as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice bluntly condemned the refusal of their rulers to give women the right to vote.
It was heard in Kuwait as women's rights activists lauded - and some conservative men deplored - the appointment of the first-ever woman, political science professor Massouma al-Mubarak, to a cabinet position.
And it was heard in Pakistan where Mukhtar Mai defied the government that sought to silence her for speaking out against a barbaric custom imposed upon her: gang-raping a young woman for an offense committed by her brother, traditionally followed by the suicide of the rape victim.
In many Arab nations of Islam, women have often been relegated to obscurity, denied a role economically, politically, socially. One out of every two Arab women can neither read nor write. A 2002 report prepared by Arab intellectuals for the United Nations charged that "utilization of Arab women's capabilities through political and economic participation remains the lowest in the world." Women occupy only 3.5 percent of all seats in parliaments of Arab countries, compared to 11 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, and 12.9 percent in Latin America and Caribbean countries.
In many countries women suffer from unequal citizenship, and are denied the right to vote or hold office. In a somber conclusion, the UN report declared: "Society as a whole suffers when half of its productive potential is stifled." But at least in the countries I've named, some women are speaking out and declaring that they've lived under male-dominated rule long enough.
In Egypt the women's movement has been energized by attacks on females from supporters of President Mubarak. Women have been taking a key role in trying to organize opposition to the Mubarak regime. Earlier this year, Hosni Mubarak announced reforms that will permit more than one candidate to run for president later this year. Critics proclaim that all this is a sham, that Mr. Mubarak's reelection is greased, and that those who seek to generate legitimate opposition are being intimidated. Part of this intimidation, they say, is groping and abuse of women demonstrators and the female relatives of male opposition politicians.
This has caused a backlash with not only women, but also with disgusted males, who have inveighed against the government.
In Iran, Islamic women have participated in rare - and unauthorized - demonstrations against sex discrimination by the ruling Islamic regime. Iranian law requireswomen to assume inferior roles to men; they are rarely promoted to senior roles in government service, and need permission from their husbands to work outside the home or travel abroad. Though Iranian women are largely pessimistic about the prospects for reform until there is a regime change, they nevertheless forced candidates in the recent presidential election to pay lip service to the issue of women's rights.
In the Islamic land of Pakistan, Mukhtar Mai has defied tribal tradition and instead of committing suicide after being raped, has fought back and secured the conviction of the rapists - and she did it with the support of a local Islamic leader.
Her subsequent harassment by authorities, including house arrest, a ban on travel to the US, and seizure of her passport - let alone a court order freeing her attackers - has roused international anger and pressure from the US government upon a Pakistani government that has been an important ally of the US in the war against terrorism. Tuesday, Ms. Mai won a victory when Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered her attackers to be rearrested.
In a vocal manner that hasn't been evident before, women in the Islamic lands are speaking out. Their case is being given traction by President Bush's emphasis on fostering democracy in lands that lack it - even though they be longtime allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
There cannot be democracy while women of the region are disadvantaged. There cannot be economic progress while half of the region's productive potential is stifled.
• John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, is editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret Morning News.
Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links
The following article illustrates the unpracticality of applying the Sharia in the present context. In most Muslim countries individuals simply ignore or show contempt for the law and act against it in private. Clearly there is a need for ijtihad and re evaluation of the archaic law.
The truth about Islamic law
By Ahmed R. Benchemsi
AHMED R. BENCHEMSI is editor of TelQuel, a weekly French-language magazine in Morocco.
August 21, 2005
AMERICANS MAY be hoping that Iraqis currently debating their constitution will resolve once and for all the thorny issue of what role Islam plays in society. But those of us who live in Muslim societies understand that this question is never fully settled, regardless of what the law says.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia are extremely strict. Saudis found guilty of adultery face the death penalty; anyone caught drinking alcohol, the selling of which is forbidden, or breaking their fast during the holy month of Ramadan is sentenced to long-term imprisonment plus a beating with a stick.
None of this, however, prevents the royal family or the bourgeoisie from doing whatever they want behind the concealing walls of palaces or mansions. But the common people are generally prevented from committing such horrible sins.
Yet some Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, are more liberal. Their laws are still backward, but society is governed by the rule of hypocrisy rather than by the rule of law.
And that's a good thing at times. The law in Morocco, for instance, bans the sale of alcohol to Muslims. It even says so right on the government-issued licenses to sell booze — presumably to non-Muslim residents and foreign visitors, who make up the non-Muslim resident population. But in our society, religion is a given, not a choice, and so roughly 99% of all Moroccans are deemed Muslims as matter of law. The beauty is, there is no way to prove if someone is a Muslim because it is not written on ID cards or on foreheads.
On any given day, there must be 100 times more cans of beer consumed than there are non-Muslims living in the country. The game is to turn a blind eye when it comes to the religion of the drinkers — a Moroccan version of "don't ask, don't tell" — and business goes on.
When someone buys alcohol in Morocco, the salesman hands him the bottle in a black plastic bag so that the buyer "shows respect" to Muslims in the street by not "exposing them" to alcohol. The side effect is that anyone carrying a black plastic bag, even if it contains Coca-Cola or diapers, is suspected of being a "bad Muslim."
Hypocrisy also applies, not surprisingly, to sex. Having sex outside marriage is a crime. Divorce is legal in Morocco, but living together if you are not married is technically a crime. Moroccan society glorifies virginity until marriage, at least in theory. Neither laws nor the social order can stop the hormones' call.
Such laws are not often applied, yet few advocate their repeal because they are meant to preserve the façade of religion and tradition. A respected elderly father will stick to the idea that his by-all-means-righteous, single 40-year-old daughter is a virgin. To admit otherwise, even when everyone knows it's not true, would mean dishonor to the family, so everyone plays along.
In Morocco, there is no such thing as an honor crime. Delusion works better.
Hypocrisy is a way to reconcile the needs for religiosity and freedom. The late King Hassan, who kept a firm grip on Morocco over four autocratic decades, often stressed the "Moroccan genius," consisting of blending tradition and modernity harmoniously. The thing is, it was a lie. Tradition and modernity never combined. They just coexisted side by side in contradictory ways, which prevented people from clearly choosing either. As Hoba Hoba Spirit, a famous rock band in today's Morocco, puts it:
A bit of tradition
A bit of science fiction
End result confusion
It's fusion that makes us dumb …
and completely lost….
The truth about Islamic law
By Ahmed R. Benchemsi
AHMED R. BENCHEMSI is editor of TelQuel, a weekly French-language magazine in Morocco.
August 21, 2005
AMERICANS MAY be hoping that Iraqis currently debating their constitution will resolve once and for all the thorny issue of what role Islam plays in society. But those of us who live in Muslim societies understand that this question is never fully settled, regardless of what the law says.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia are extremely strict. Saudis found guilty of adultery face the death penalty; anyone caught drinking alcohol, the selling of which is forbidden, or breaking their fast during the holy month of Ramadan is sentenced to long-term imprisonment plus a beating with a stick.
None of this, however, prevents the royal family or the bourgeoisie from doing whatever they want behind the concealing walls of palaces or mansions. But the common people are generally prevented from committing such horrible sins.
Yet some Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, are more liberal. Their laws are still backward, but society is governed by the rule of hypocrisy rather than by the rule of law.
And that's a good thing at times. The law in Morocco, for instance, bans the sale of alcohol to Muslims. It even says so right on the government-issued licenses to sell booze — presumably to non-Muslim residents and foreign visitors, who make up the non-Muslim resident population. But in our society, religion is a given, not a choice, and so roughly 99% of all Moroccans are deemed Muslims as matter of law. The beauty is, there is no way to prove if someone is a Muslim because it is not written on ID cards or on foreheads.
On any given day, there must be 100 times more cans of beer consumed than there are non-Muslims living in the country. The game is to turn a blind eye when it comes to the religion of the drinkers — a Moroccan version of "don't ask, don't tell" — and business goes on.
When someone buys alcohol in Morocco, the salesman hands him the bottle in a black plastic bag so that the buyer "shows respect" to Muslims in the street by not "exposing them" to alcohol. The side effect is that anyone carrying a black plastic bag, even if it contains Coca-Cola or diapers, is suspected of being a "bad Muslim."
Hypocrisy also applies, not surprisingly, to sex. Having sex outside marriage is a crime. Divorce is legal in Morocco, but living together if you are not married is technically a crime. Moroccan society glorifies virginity until marriage, at least in theory. Neither laws nor the social order can stop the hormones' call.
Such laws are not often applied, yet few advocate their repeal because they are meant to preserve the façade of religion and tradition. A respected elderly father will stick to the idea that his by-all-means-righteous, single 40-year-old daughter is a virgin. To admit otherwise, even when everyone knows it's not true, would mean dishonor to the family, so everyone plays along.
In Morocco, there is no such thing as an honor crime. Delusion works better.
Hypocrisy is a way to reconcile the needs for religiosity and freedom. The late King Hassan, who kept a firm grip on Morocco over four autocratic decades, often stressed the "Moroccan genius," consisting of blending tradition and modernity harmoniously. The thing is, it was a lie. Tradition and modernity never combined. They just coexisted side by side in contradictory ways, which prevented people from clearly choosing either. As Hoba Hoba Spirit, a famous rock band in today's Morocco, puts it:
A bit of tradition
A bit of science fiction
End result confusion
It's fusion that makes us dumb …
and completely lost….
The following article that appeared in today's Calgary Herald discusses Nasr Abu Zaid's book "Voice of an Exile: Reflections on Islam". It highlights the issues that are currently being debated within Islam viz a viz, historicity of the Quran, the need for ijtihad and the role of intellect in faith.
Running afoul of Islam
Barry Cooper
For The Calgary Herald
September 7, 2005
Often western critics of Islam wonder why the voices of moderate reforming Muslims are so easily silenced by strident fundamentalist ones. "Where is the Muslim Luther?" these critics wonder.
Leaving aside the differences between reforming a hierarchy such as the late medieval Christian Church and the contemporary non-hierarchic Muslim community along with the issue of what Luther thought he was doing, the question is not entirely meaningless. Nasr Abu Zaid's recent book, Voice of an Exile: Reflections on Islam, tries to grapple with this question.
Zaid was honoured by being singled out for condemnation in 1995 by Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of Osama bin Laden's terrorist associates. Zaid committed two offences, according to al-Zawahiri: he argued that the holy texts of Islam should be understood and interpreted in light of the historical and linguistic context that accompanied their writing, and that new interpretations need to be made in light of changing circumstances.
Zaid's problems began prior to his having come to the attention of al-Zawahiri. In 1992, when he applied for tenure at the University of Cairo in the Department of Arabic Studies, he was turned down. The chief reason cited was that he used "independent reasoning" or "ijtihad," in his work. Many traditional Muslims believe "the gates of ijtihad" have been closed since the 13th century.
He also drew attention to historical evidence concerning the several versions of the text of the Qur'an in circulation prior to the textual standardization decreed by the third caliph, Uthman. Zaid drew the conclusion there was a human dimension to the Qur'an as well as a divine one.
That is, the historical contingency that the message of the Qur'an was revealed on a particular occasion in seventh-century Arabia mattered. This view also contradicted the view of the traditionalists that the Qur'an was God's eternal and thus uncreated speech.
Biblical scholars, whether of the Hebrew or the Christian texts, have long been accustomed to see beyond the contingent and human words of scripture to the divine meaning that the Biblical message expressed.
Even early Islam made room for a school of thought, the Mutazilites, who sought to interpret Muslim scriptures by taking its symbolic or metaphorical meaning into account. Of course, these approaches are disputed, but so too are equivalent schools of Biblical interpretation. As late as 1960, the publication of the Dutch Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church was highly controversial. The catechism took pains to assure Catholic traditionalists that having an "inquiring mind" was not evidence of "a non-Christian attitude."
The inquiring mind of Nasr Zaid earned him, as it did some of the Dutch Catholics, the charge of apostasy. His wife was instructed to divorce him because a Muslim woman cannot remain married to an apostate, and eventually they were both compelled to flee Egypt for the Netherlands.
The story he tells in this thoughtful memoir is filled with fascinating details of life in Cairo, of his struggle for an education, and, following the death of his father, of his struggle for enough money to keep his family both fed and respectable.
He also described the attractions of joining the radical Muslim Brotherhood and how he resisted the temptations of fundamentalism.
The persistent theme, however, is the conflict between the reflective investigation of the meaning of a sacred text and the loud preaching of religious dogma.
For example, just because the practice of wife-beating is mentioned in the Qur'an does not mean it is sanctioned by God or God's law. To understand such texts, Zaid argues, we must look both to the historical context and to the aim of the Qur'an, which, socially speaking, is justice. Likewise, the issue of polygamy, he says, is properly understood as a way of dealing with a serious social problem of seventh-century Arabia, the mistreatment of orphans.
The broad lesson of Zaid's book is that the inquiring mind of a Muslim thinker can even today join the great thinkers of the Christian and Jewish as well as of the Muslim and Greek past. He reminds us that the way beyond the dogmatic wars that enable so many in the west to dismiss all Muslims as fundamentalists and, reciprocally, to permit Muslims to dismiss western thinkers as Zionists and Crusaders, is by way of what all humans have in common, which must include their inquiring minds.
Barry Cooper is managing director of the Fraser Institute's Calgary office and a professor of political science at the University of Calgary.
© The Calgary Herald 2005
Running afoul of Islam
Barry Cooper
For The Calgary Herald
September 7, 2005
Often western critics of Islam wonder why the voices of moderate reforming Muslims are so easily silenced by strident fundamentalist ones. "Where is the Muslim Luther?" these critics wonder.
Leaving aside the differences between reforming a hierarchy such as the late medieval Christian Church and the contemporary non-hierarchic Muslim community along with the issue of what Luther thought he was doing, the question is not entirely meaningless. Nasr Abu Zaid's recent book, Voice of an Exile: Reflections on Islam, tries to grapple with this question.
Zaid was honoured by being singled out for condemnation in 1995 by Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of Osama bin Laden's terrorist associates. Zaid committed two offences, according to al-Zawahiri: he argued that the holy texts of Islam should be understood and interpreted in light of the historical and linguistic context that accompanied their writing, and that new interpretations need to be made in light of changing circumstances.
Zaid's problems began prior to his having come to the attention of al-Zawahiri. In 1992, when he applied for tenure at the University of Cairo in the Department of Arabic Studies, he was turned down. The chief reason cited was that he used "independent reasoning" or "ijtihad," in his work. Many traditional Muslims believe "the gates of ijtihad" have been closed since the 13th century.
He also drew attention to historical evidence concerning the several versions of the text of the Qur'an in circulation prior to the textual standardization decreed by the third caliph, Uthman. Zaid drew the conclusion there was a human dimension to the Qur'an as well as a divine one.
That is, the historical contingency that the message of the Qur'an was revealed on a particular occasion in seventh-century Arabia mattered. This view also contradicted the view of the traditionalists that the Qur'an was God's eternal and thus uncreated speech.
Biblical scholars, whether of the Hebrew or the Christian texts, have long been accustomed to see beyond the contingent and human words of scripture to the divine meaning that the Biblical message expressed.
Even early Islam made room for a school of thought, the Mutazilites, who sought to interpret Muslim scriptures by taking its symbolic or metaphorical meaning into account. Of course, these approaches are disputed, but so too are equivalent schools of Biblical interpretation. As late as 1960, the publication of the Dutch Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church was highly controversial. The catechism took pains to assure Catholic traditionalists that having an "inquiring mind" was not evidence of "a non-Christian attitude."
The inquiring mind of Nasr Zaid earned him, as it did some of the Dutch Catholics, the charge of apostasy. His wife was instructed to divorce him because a Muslim woman cannot remain married to an apostate, and eventually they were both compelled to flee Egypt for the Netherlands.
The story he tells in this thoughtful memoir is filled with fascinating details of life in Cairo, of his struggle for an education, and, following the death of his father, of his struggle for enough money to keep his family both fed and respectable.
He also described the attractions of joining the radical Muslim Brotherhood and how he resisted the temptations of fundamentalism.
The persistent theme, however, is the conflict between the reflective investigation of the meaning of a sacred text and the loud preaching of religious dogma.
For example, just because the practice of wife-beating is mentioned in the Qur'an does not mean it is sanctioned by God or God's law. To understand such texts, Zaid argues, we must look both to the historical context and to the aim of the Qur'an, which, socially speaking, is justice. Likewise, the issue of polygamy, he says, is properly understood as a way of dealing with a serious social problem of seventh-century Arabia, the mistreatment of orphans.
The broad lesson of Zaid's book is that the inquiring mind of a Muslim thinker can even today join the great thinkers of the Christian and Jewish as well as of the Muslim and Greek past. He reminds us that the way beyond the dogmatic wars that enable so many in the west to dismiss all Muslims as fundamentalists and, reciprocally, to permit Muslims to dismiss western thinkers as Zionists and Crusaders, is by way of what all humans have in common, which must include their inquiring minds.
Barry Cooper is managing director of the Fraser Institute's Calgary office and a professor of political science at the University of Calgary.
© The Calgary Herald 2005
The following article is about women in America who feel that they do not need the covers of hijab or burkha to identify themselves as Muslim women. They can still dress up modestly without the artificial coverings - very much in line with Ismaili thinking.
BEING ISLAMIC
Uncovering the truth
Stereotypes of submission, oppression anger many Muslim women
By Omar Sacirbey, Omar Sacirbey is an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow.
NADA SELAMEH doesn't hold back her opinions on the American media. "I don't like the way they represent us," she said. They make the American public attack us. What upsets me is the way they portray Muslim women as being oppressed by their men."
Before 9/11, Selameh never wore a hijab, the head scarf some Muslim women wear as an expression of modesty. But when dusty burkas became the defining image of Muslim women during the war in Afghanistan, the native of Dearborn, Mich., started wearing a hijab at 26.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I felt that I wasn't the female the media were showing as representative of Muslims," she said.
Ironically, few knew she was a Muslim in the first place. "When I'm not covered, I just blend in," she said. "But being covered, people know, 'OK, she's Muslim.' But I don't have 10 kids. I'm not married. I work. I have a master's degree."
Before she donned her hijab, Selameh was among the unveiled majority of Muslim women in the West who are less visible than those in burkas.
She was one of about 2,000 Arab Americans, most of them Muslims, attending the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's annual convention this summer. Most women were business casual — knee-length skirts, slacks and button-downs. Designer T-shirts, low-cut jeans and miniskirts were popular among younger women. Selameh was one of only a handful of women wearing the hijab. Still, she worried that "the face of the Muslim woman" would be that of a "hijabi," not the hijabless majority.
Selameh has reason to worry. "Veiled Praise" was a recent headline in the New York Times. "What It's Like When I Wear Hijab" was another in the Lexington Herald-Leader. The headline "Muslim women face decisions on traditional, modern values" appeared in the Boston Globe, accompanied by photos of women wearing head scarves. Add TV images of Arab women in niqabs or columns of Iranian women in chadors — and it's hard not to say "covered" when you think of Muslim women.
To most Westerners, "an authentic Muslim woman is always wearing a hijab," said Asma Barlas, a Koran scholar at Ithaca College whose female-centric interpretations of Islam's holy book have sparked controversy in the Muslim world.
In reality, most Muslim women in the United States and in Europe don't wear the hijab, except for worship, because they are members of a secular majority or see themselves as cultural Muslims, identifying more with rai music or rumi poetry than with salah, or Scripture. Still others are devoted Muslims but don't view the hijab as a prerequisite of spirituality.
To these Muslim women, the hijab is more than an annoying media stereotype. It obscures their independence, outspokenness and career-mindedness.
Without the hijab, "we don't exist. We're not allowed to be the face of Islam," said Laila Al-Marayati, a physician and the chairwoman of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Women's League."
An example of the media's preferred face of the Muslim woman recently appeared in a Seattle Times story headlined "Preserving modesty, in the pool." The piece featured a group of Muslim women who gathered at an indoor pool once a month to swim. Before swimming, they taped brown paper over the windows so men couldn't see them. "Because Islam requires Muslim women to fully cover themselves in public," the story said, "swimming in pools or the ocean is largely off-limits for many."
The face of Munira Sheriff better reflects Muslim women in secular societies. The recent graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government wore a midline skirt and button-down shirt when I met her.
"A lot of people forget that everybody is allowed to interpret the religion," she said. "I believe that Islam wants us to be modest. And I believe this midline skirt I'm wearing is acceptable modesty [in the United States]. In Pakistan, I would not wear this because it wouldn't be acceptable; it wouldn't be modest there."
In rejecting the hijab as a defining characteristic of Muslim women, Koran scholars such as Barlas contend that the head scarf is not rooted in theology but in the traditions of male-dominated societies. In her book "Believing Women in Islam," she argues that neither of the two Koranic verses cited by conservatives to justify the veiling of women specifies a preferred covering. Rather, women should "guard their modesty" and "draw their cloaks over their bosoms."
"There are many ways in which you can cover your bosom," a hijab being just one of them, Barlas said. The idea that women have to cover their head and face emerged a few hundred years after Islam's birth and was based on the belief that women's bodies are corrupting, a belief unsupported in the Koran, Barlas argued.
These arguments are not confined to academic circles. Muslim moderates around the world hear and talk about them. Last year, Barlas spoke at the annual convention of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, an advocacy group, and spent several weeks this summer in Indonesia talking about her interpretations of the Koran.
"Things are happening," Barlas said, "but they are slow, and they will take time."
Barlas' story — a Muslim woman seeking to undo centuries of patriarchy infuriates the male establishment, with some wanting her head — is a good one. But there are lots of smart, opinionated Muslim women in the United States with equally good stories, if only the media drops their veil of preconceptions.
BEING ISLAMIC
Uncovering the truth
Stereotypes of submission, oppression anger many Muslim women
By Omar Sacirbey, Omar Sacirbey is an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow.
NADA SELAMEH doesn't hold back her opinions on the American media. "I don't like the way they represent us," she said. They make the American public attack us. What upsets me is the way they portray Muslim women as being oppressed by their men."
Before 9/11, Selameh never wore a hijab, the head scarf some Muslim women wear as an expression of modesty. But when dusty burkas became the defining image of Muslim women during the war in Afghanistan, the native of Dearborn, Mich., started wearing a hijab at 26.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I felt that I wasn't the female the media were showing as representative of Muslims," she said.
Ironically, few knew she was a Muslim in the first place. "When I'm not covered, I just blend in," she said. "But being covered, people know, 'OK, she's Muslim.' But I don't have 10 kids. I'm not married. I work. I have a master's degree."
Before she donned her hijab, Selameh was among the unveiled majority of Muslim women in the West who are less visible than those in burkas.
She was one of about 2,000 Arab Americans, most of them Muslims, attending the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's annual convention this summer. Most women were business casual — knee-length skirts, slacks and button-downs. Designer T-shirts, low-cut jeans and miniskirts were popular among younger women. Selameh was one of only a handful of women wearing the hijab. Still, she worried that "the face of the Muslim woman" would be that of a "hijabi," not the hijabless majority.
Selameh has reason to worry. "Veiled Praise" was a recent headline in the New York Times. "What It's Like When I Wear Hijab" was another in the Lexington Herald-Leader. The headline "Muslim women face decisions on traditional, modern values" appeared in the Boston Globe, accompanied by photos of women wearing head scarves. Add TV images of Arab women in niqabs or columns of Iranian women in chadors — and it's hard not to say "covered" when you think of Muslim women.
To most Westerners, "an authentic Muslim woman is always wearing a hijab," said Asma Barlas, a Koran scholar at Ithaca College whose female-centric interpretations of Islam's holy book have sparked controversy in the Muslim world.
In reality, most Muslim women in the United States and in Europe don't wear the hijab, except for worship, because they are members of a secular majority or see themselves as cultural Muslims, identifying more with rai music or rumi poetry than with salah, or Scripture. Still others are devoted Muslims but don't view the hijab as a prerequisite of spirituality.
To these Muslim women, the hijab is more than an annoying media stereotype. It obscures their independence, outspokenness and career-mindedness.
Without the hijab, "we don't exist. We're not allowed to be the face of Islam," said Laila Al-Marayati, a physician and the chairwoman of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Women's League."
An example of the media's preferred face of the Muslim woman recently appeared in a Seattle Times story headlined "Preserving modesty, in the pool." The piece featured a group of Muslim women who gathered at an indoor pool once a month to swim. Before swimming, they taped brown paper over the windows so men couldn't see them. "Because Islam requires Muslim women to fully cover themselves in public," the story said, "swimming in pools or the ocean is largely off-limits for many."
The face of Munira Sheriff better reflects Muslim women in secular societies. The recent graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government wore a midline skirt and button-down shirt when I met her.
"A lot of people forget that everybody is allowed to interpret the religion," she said. "I believe that Islam wants us to be modest. And I believe this midline skirt I'm wearing is acceptable modesty [in the United States]. In Pakistan, I would not wear this because it wouldn't be acceptable; it wouldn't be modest there."
In rejecting the hijab as a defining characteristic of Muslim women, Koran scholars such as Barlas contend that the head scarf is not rooted in theology but in the traditions of male-dominated societies. In her book "Believing Women in Islam," she argues that neither of the two Koranic verses cited by conservatives to justify the veiling of women specifies a preferred covering. Rather, women should "guard their modesty" and "draw their cloaks over their bosoms."
"There are many ways in which you can cover your bosom," a hijab being just one of them, Barlas said. The idea that women have to cover their head and face emerged a few hundred years after Islam's birth and was based on the belief that women's bodies are corrupting, a belief unsupported in the Koran, Barlas argued.
These arguments are not confined to academic circles. Muslim moderates around the world hear and talk about them. Last year, Barlas spoke at the annual convention of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, an advocacy group, and spent several weeks this summer in Indonesia talking about her interpretations of the Koran.
"Things are happening," Barlas said, "but they are slow, and they will take time."
Barlas' story — a Muslim woman seeking to undo centuries of patriarchy infuriates the male establishment, with some wanting her head — is a good one. But there are lots of smart, opinionated Muslim women in the United States with equally good stories, if only the media drops their veil of preconceptions.
The following article expressing the views of Russian Islam, highlights the need to embrace pluralistic nature of Islam with respect to socio/economic/cultural/political backgrounds of its various constituencies. It also underscores the need for Islam to adapt to the new realities of our times. It will be interesting to see how these sentiments find expression in the coming decades.
Perhaps our Jamats in Central Asia as they develop and evolve, could provide appropriate role models for socio/cultural/economic development within the framework of the balance between tradition and modernity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4341648.stm
Russian Islam goes its own way
By Leonid Ragozin
bbcrussian.com, Moscow
"If people wear tight jeans or skirts and speak slang, it does not mean they have veered from the path of true Islam."
One in five Russians may be Muslim by 2020
Shamil Alyautdinov often says things you do not quite expect from an imam.
But 70 years of communism have bulldozed most religious and ethnic traditions in Russia, so do not be surprised when you hear him saying it is all right that most Muslims do not even attend the mosque.
"It is not obligatory," Mr Alyautdinov adds. "Life is very fast these days, so people don't have time to go to mosque."
The 31-year-old imam of the Moscow Memorial mosque, who graduated from a regular secondary school in the Russian capital's suburbia but studied Islamic theology in Egypt, finds new methods of reaching his flock, suitable for the new era.
Muslims from all around the country send him e-mails with questions on various aspects of everyday life and worship. His answers have already formed several books.
The most voluminous of them all - reflecting the readers' main area of interest - is the one called He And She and dedicated, as the name suggests, to relations between men and women.
Another bestseller sold across the country includes some of Mr Alyautdinov's texts, although the imam strongly objects to its "provocative" name: Love And Sex In Islam.
The book praised in the foreword by leading Muslim clerics, theologians, activists and even the Iranian cultural attache, covers such issues as sex change, masturbation, anal and oral sex - and many others - from the Islamic perspective.
But in a country that has one of the world's highest divorce and abortion rates, these two issues top Russian Muslims' agenda, along with cross-religious marriage and premarital sex.
Beliefs reassessed
The country's Muslim community is extremely diverse - from Volga Tatars and Bashkirs to the ethnic mishmash of the North Caucasus. But unlike Muslim minorities in Western Europe, most Russian Muslims represent native people of what is now Russia, who inhabited their land for over a millennium.
They spent centuries adapting to the official dominance of Orthodox Christianity in tsarist times and then underwent the communist experiment aimed at rooting out religion and melting all ethnic groups into one great Soviet nation.
The country's Muslim community makes up more than 10% of the total population. Demographers predict that by 2020 one out of five Russians will be Muslim. But the question is: How Muslim will they be?
The end of communism found many Muslims dispersed among the non-Muslim population and living a lifestyle nearly indistinguishable from their fellow citizens of Russia. In the 1990s, millions of them turned back to their roots, but many soon grew disappointed with mainstream Islam and called for reforms.
Rafail Khakimov, who heads the Institute of Tatar History, coined the term "Euroislam". Its main feature, he says, is a "critical attitude to everything that happens around us instead of blindly following the principles established in the Middle Ages".
"The traditions of the Islamic world were shaped between the 10th and 12th centuries and preserved ever since but the liberal Islam which started developing two centuries ago is open to all experiences existing in the world," he says.
'Room for everything'
Being an advisor to the president of Tatarstan, Mr Khakimov is one of those who shape the official ideology of this predominantly Muslim republic inside Russia which enjoys a high degree of autonomy.
"Europe is the point of reference for Tatarstan's elite, including the leadership," he asserts.
Mainstream clerics believe Islam does not need either a "euro" prefix or any other.
"Islam is a universal religion that answers all the questions an individual or society as a whole may face," says Nafigulla Ashirov, the chief mufti of the Asian part of Russia.
He says Islam gives enough room for diversity, for instance as regards what people want to wear: European-style clothes do not contradict the Koran.
"But this is not modernisation - it is what Islam allows anyway," Mr Ashirov says.
Some Tatar clerics add that the Hanafite theological school, dominant in Tatar Islam, is pluralistic and critical enough to answer the challenges of the epoch. Mr Khakimov, however, blames them for being out of touch with ordinary Muslims:
"Tatarstan has thousands of mosques, so why are they locked? Because many imams studied abroad, for example in Saudi Arabia. But the situation in Russia is completely different from that of the Arabian peninsula."
Euroislamists and mainstream clerics might disagree, but there is no feeling of enmity between them.
However, there is another Muslim reformist movement whose existence worries them both.
The militants
The leader of the Islamic committee of Russia, Geydar Dzhemal, who claims to be close to Salafism - a purist teaching dominant in Saudi Arabia - advocates Islamic guerrilla resistance against the "barbaric" authorities.
"Many young people who were provoked by the security forces, tortured and humiliated went off into the forests and mountains and most certainly perished there, but refused to kiss the boots of the new Mongols," he says.
Dismissing the leaders of Chechen separatists as failed role models, he praises the people of Andijan - an Uzbek town whose residents last May staged a revolt brutally suppressed by the government.
The popularity of such ideas largely depends on the Russian authorities' ability not to alienate Muslims like they did in the most notorious example of Chechnya.
But it also depends on how carefully Russian Muslim leaders strike a balance between tradition and the urge for change.
Perhaps our Jamats in Central Asia as they develop and evolve, could provide appropriate role models for socio/cultural/economic development within the framework of the balance between tradition and modernity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4341648.stm
Russian Islam goes its own way
By Leonid Ragozin
bbcrussian.com, Moscow
"If people wear tight jeans or skirts and speak slang, it does not mean they have veered from the path of true Islam."
One in five Russians may be Muslim by 2020
Shamil Alyautdinov often says things you do not quite expect from an imam.
But 70 years of communism have bulldozed most religious and ethnic traditions in Russia, so do not be surprised when you hear him saying it is all right that most Muslims do not even attend the mosque.
"It is not obligatory," Mr Alyautdinov adds. "Life is very fast these days, so people don't have time to go to mosque."
The 31-year-old imam of the Moscow Memorial mosque, who graduated from a regular secondary school in the Russian capital's suburbia but studied Islamic theology in Egypt, finds new methods of reaching his flock, suitable for the new era.
Muslims from all around the country send him e-mails with questions on various aspects of everyday life and worship. His answers have already formed several books.
The most voluminous of them all - reflecting the readers' main area of interest - is the one called He And She and dedicated, as the name suggests, to relations between men and women.
Another bestseller sold across the country includes some of Mr Alyautdinov's texts, although the imam strongly objects to its "provocative" name: Love And Sex In Islam.
The book praised in the foreword by leading Muslim clerics, theologians, activists and even the Iranian cultural attache, covers such issues as sex change, masturbation, anal and oral sex - and many others - from the Islamic perspective.
But in a country that has one of the world's highest divorce and abortion rates, these two issues top Russian Muslims' agenda, along with cross-religious marriage and premarital sex.
Beliefs reassessed
The country's Muslim community is extremely diverse - from Volga Tatars and Bashkirs to the ethnic mishmash of the North Caucasus. But unlike Muslim minorities in Western Europe, most Russian Muslims represent native people of what is now Russia, who inhabited their land for over a millennium.
They spent centuries adapting to the official dominance of Orthodox Christianity in tsarist times and then underwent the communist experiment aimed at rooting out religion and melting all ethnic groups into one great Soviet nation.
The country's Muslim community makes up more than 10% of the total population. Demographers predict that by 2020 one out of five Russians will be Muslim. But the question is: How Muslim will they be?
The end of communism found many Muslims dispersed among the non-Muslim population and living a lifestyle nearly indistinguishable from their fellow citizens of Russia. In the 1990s, millions of them turned back to their roots, but many soon grew disappointed with mainstream Islam and called for reforms.
Rafail Khakimov, who heads the Institute of Tatar History, coined the term "Euroislam". Its main feature, he says, is a "critical attitude to everything that happens around us instead of blindly following the principles established in the Middle Ages".
"The traditions of the Islamic world were shaped between the 10th and 12th centuries and preserved ever since but the liberal Islam which started developing two centuries ago is open to all experiences existing in the world," he says.
'Room for everything'
Being an advisor to the president of Tatarstan, Mr Khakimov is one of those who shape the official ideology of this predominantly Muslim republic inside Russia which enjoys a high degree of autonomy.
"Europe is the point of reference for Tatarstan's elite, including the leadership," he asserts.
Mainstream clerics believe Islam does not need either a "euro" prefix or any other.
"Islam is a universal religion that answers all the questions an individual or society as a whole may face," says Nafigulla Ashirov, the chief mufti of the Asian part of Russia.
He says Islam gives enough room for diversity, for instance as regards what people want to wear: European-style clothes do not contradict the Koran.
"But this is not modernisation - it is what Islam allows anyway," Mr Ashirov says.
Some Tatar clerics add that the Hanafite theological school, dominant in Tatar Islam, is pluralistic and critical enough to answer the challenges of the epoch. Mr Khakimov, however, blames them for being out of touch with ordinary Muslims:
"Tatarstan has thousands of mosques, so why are they locked? Because many imams studied abroad, for example in Saudi Arabia. But the situation in Russia is completely different from that of the Arabian peninsula."
Euroislamists and mainstream clerics might disagree, but there is no feeling of enmity between them.
However, there is another Muslim reformist movement whose existence worries them both.
The militants
The leader of the Islamic committee of Russia, Geydar Dzhemal, who claims to be close to Salafism - a purist teaching dominant in Saudi Arabia - advocates Islamic guerrilla resistance against the "barbaric" authorities.
"Many young people who were provoked by the security forces, tortured and humiliated went off into the forests and mountains and most certainly perished there, but refused to kiss the boots of the new Mongols," he says.
Dismissing the leaders of Chechen separatists as failed role models, he praises the people of Andijan - an Uzbek town whose residents last May staged a revolt brutally suppressed by the government.
The popularity of such ideas largely depends on the Russian authorities' ability not to alienate Muslims like they did in the most notorious example of Chechnya.
But it also depends on how carefully Russian Muslim leaders strike a balance between tradition and the urge for change.
-
star_munir
- Posts: 1670
- Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:55 am
- Contact:
Pak Hindu girls forced to convert to Islam
By: Hasan Mansoor
November 13, 2005
Karachi: An alarming trend — that of Muslims kidnapping Pakistani Hindu girls and forcing them to convert to Islam — in Pakistan’s Sindh province is forcing the worried resident Hindu community to marry off their daughters as soon as they are of marriageable age or to migrate to India, Canada or other nations.
Recently, at least 19 such abduction cases have occurred in Karachi alone, while several others have been reported in the media.
Sanao Menghwar, a Hindu resident of Karachi’s Punjab Colony, is a traumatised man; all three of his daughters —Aishwarya, Reena and Reema — have been kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam.
In the police complaint that he filed at the behest of the Panchayat after two days of futile searching for his daughters, he stated that when he and his wife returned home from work, they discovered their daughters had gone missing.
The police arrested three Muslim youths in connection with the crime, who were later granted bail by a court because they’re minors. Menghwar’s daughters continue to remain missing.
“Kidnapping Hindu girls like this has become a normal practice. The girls are then forced to sign stamp papers stating that they’ve become Muslims,” says Laljee Menghwar, a member of the Hindu Panchayat in Karachi.
According to him, the Pakistani government needs to examine and put a stop to the social oppression of religious minorities in the country. “Hindus here are too frightened to vent their anger — they fear victimisation. But we have now decided to go public with these cases and demand justice,” Laljee says. Their cause has found support in the Pakistani Christian community, who carried out a demonstration with them in Karachi, protesting against this crime.
Similarly startling incidents have occurred in several districts of Sindh and evoked identical responses. At least six Hindu girls met this fate a few months ago in Jacobabad (a tribal area heavily inhabited by Hindus) and Larkana districts.
Sapna, the daughter of one Seth Giyanchand, was recently taken to a shrine (Amrote in Shikarpur district) by Shamsuddin Dasti. Dasti, a Muslim friend of Sapna’s brother, is a married man and father of two.
Nevertheless, the custodian of the shrine, Maulvi Abdul Aziz lost no time in converting Sapna to Islam (her names was changed to ‘Mehek’) and marrying her to Dasti. The case came to light only when Sapna’s parents stated that their daughter hadn’t eloped but been abducted.
Human rights activists, such as Nuzhat Shirin who belongs to the Aurat Foundation, says that religious extremism is rapidly increasing in Jacobabad and other Sindh districts.
Extremists in turn encourage shrines, which are involved with forced conversions. When a Hindu girl is converted to Islam, hundreds of extremists belonging to religious parties such as Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI), take to the streets and chant religious slogans.
In Sapna’s case, when she was presented in court with Dasti, extremists showered rose petals on them and loudly chanted religious slogans. The fanaticism was so daunting that Sapna was too frightened to even speak with her own parents who were also present in the courtroom. At that, Maulvi Aziz, who was also standing in the courtroom, was said to have remarked, “How can a Muslim girl live and maintain contact with kafirs (infidels)?”
Sapna’s story sparked widespread demonstrations by the Hindu community. Presidents and mukhis of Panchayats from various towns and districts met in Jacobabad to discuss this serious issue. Activists and leaders from educated segments of society strongly criticised the role of religious leaders, like Maulvi Aziz, in these forced conversion cases.
Still, the threat of victimisation by Muslims is palpable; Shirin says when forced conversion cases make it to court, lawyers themselves avoid taking them up, fearing a backlash from maulvis.
Giyanchand meanwhile has said that he has no other option but to migrate to India — it will be difficult for him to find grooms for his other daughters because of Sapna’s controversial conversion.
And forced conversions are not the only problem that the Hindu minority (there are 2.7 million Hindus in Pakistan; Pakistan’s total population is 140 million) is facing in the country.
A powerful syndicate of bandits and patrons in the northern districts of Sindh regularly kidnap rich Hindus for ransom. They not kill hostages if the ransom doesn’t arrive on time, they even kill some despite their ransom being paid.
Sadham Chand Chawla, the former president of the Hindu Panchayat, Jacobabad, was abducted and murdered. His killers remain at large despite enormous protests. Following his murder, his family had received several threats until they secretly migrated to India.
By: Hasan Mansoor
November 13, 2005
Karachi: An alarming trend — that of Muslims kidnapping Pakistani Hindu girls and forcing them to convert to Islam — in Pakistan’s Sindh province is forcing the worried resident Hindu community to marry off their daughters as soon as they are of marriageable age or to migrate to India, Canada or other nations.
Recently, at least 19 such abduction cases have occurred in Karachi alone, while several others have been reported in the media.
Sanao Menghwar, a Hindu resident of Karachi’s Punjab Colony, is a traumatised man; all three of his daughters —Aishwarya, Reena and Reema — have been kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam.
In the police complaint that he filed at the behest of the Panchayat after two days of futile searching for his daughters, he stated that when he and his wife returned home from work, they discovered their daughters had gone missing.
The police arrested three Muslim youths in connection with the crime, who were later granted bail by a court because they’re minors. Menghwar’s daughters continue to remain missing.
“Kidnapping Hindu girls like this has become a normal practice. The girls are then forced to sign stamp papers stating that they’ve become Muslims,” says Laljee Menghwar, a member of the Hindu Panchayat in Karachi.
According to him, the Pakistani government needs to examine and put a stop to the social oppression of religious minorities in the country. “Hindus here are too frightened to vent their anger — they fear victimisation. But we have now decided to go public with these cases and demand justice,” Laljee says. Their cause has found support in the Pakistani Christian community, who carried out a demonstration with them in Karachi, protesting against this crime.
Similarly startling incidents have occurred in several districts of Sindh and evoked identical responses. At least six Hindu girls met this fate a few months ago in Jacobabad (a tribal area heavily inhabited by Hindus) and Larkana districts.
Sapna, the daughter of one Seth Giyanchand, was recently taken to a shrine (Amrote in Shikarpur district) by Shamsuddin Dasti. Dasti, a Muslim friend of Sapna’s brother, is a married man and father of two.
Nevertheless, the custodian of the shrine, Maulvi Abdul Aziz lost no time in converting Sapna to Islam (her names was changed to ‘Mehek’) and marrying her to Dasti. The case came to light only when Sapna’s parents stated that their daughter hadn’t eloped but been abducted.
Human rights activists, such as Nuzhat Shirin who belongs to the Aurat Foundation, says that religious extremism is rapidly increasing in Jacobabad and other Sindh districts.
Extremists in turn encourage shrines, which are involved with forced conversions. When a Hindu girl is converted to Islam, hundreds of extremists belonging to religious parties such as Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI), take to the streets and chant religious slogans.
In Sapna’s case, when she was presented in court with Dasti, extremists showered rose petals on them and loudly chanted religious slogans. The fanaticism was so daunting that Sapna was too frightened to even speak with her own parents who were also present in the courtroom. At that, Maulvi Aziz, who was also standing in the courtroom, was said to have remarked, “How can a Muslim girl live and maintain contact with kafirs (infidels)?”
Sapna’s story sparked widespread demonstrations by the Hindu community. Presidents and mukhis of Panchayats from various towns and districts met in Jacobabad to discuss this serious issue. Activists and leaders from educated segments of society strongly criticised the role of religious leaders, like Maulvi Aziz, in these forced conversion cases.
Still, the threat of victimisation by Muslims is palpable; Shirin says when forced conversion cases make it to court, lawyers themselves avoid taking them up, fearing a backlash from maulvis.
Giyanchand meanwhile has said that he has no other option but to migrate to India — it will be difficult for him to find grooms for his other daughters because of Sapna’s controversial conversion.
And forced conversions are not the only problem that the Hindu minority (there are 2.7 million Hindus in Pakistan; Pakistan’s total population is 140 million) is facing in the country.
A powerful syndicate of bandits and patrons in the northern districts of Sindh regularly kidnap rich Hindus for ransom. They not kill hostages if the ransom doesn’t arrive on time, they even kill some despite their ransom being paid.
Sadham Chand Chawla, the former president of the Hindu Panchayat, Jacobabad, was abducted and murdered. His killers remain at large despite enormous protests. Following his murder, his family had received several threats until they secretly migrated to India.